Hello again, dear reader,

SPACE

While we were Earth-bound this last week, 17 out of Earth’s 8 billion people were in orbit - a new (if soon-to-be-exceeded) record. ¿How high an orbit? Consider the standard (in the U.S.) 12-inch globe. They were orbiting 4 tenths of an inch above its surface. The thickness of a piece of standard copy paper represents the thickness of our atmosphere in which humans can populate - 14,000 feet.

Hello again Science Fans!

First off, thanks to Herb for filling in for me last month while I was traveling. Today we have a lot of catching up to do!

Happy anniversary to The Sierra Club which was founded on this date in 1892 in San Francisco!

Some of you are old enough to remember the beginnings of the “space race”, with the US pitted against the Soviet Union to see which one would be the first to create the technology to get man to the Moon. In 1959, we still didn’t know if humans could survive in space, so on this date Able and Baker, two monkeys, were laun

Greetings Fans of Science and Reason,

Does it seem like the last week has been a blur or is it just me? Of course it turns out to be insanely complicated! I’m always amazed how differently the same event can be perceived by various observers, even if they are close friends or family. Of course a portion of this is based on how we got to where we are! (Sorry, I just h

Hello Mothers and the sons and daughters of Mothers,

I hope everyone is having an excellent Mother’s day. Did you get up early and make a fine cup of Kopi Luwak for the mom of the house? Let’s be honest here. None of us would be here without mothers or science. I like to think we celebrate scie

Dear science aficionado,

Join us in another romp through recent (and not so recent) science revelations. But first, “Infinity.” Somehow i missed the Netflix movie, “A Trip to Infinity,” when it came out last year. Carve out 80 minutes this week to watch it. You won’t be sorry. The movie reminded me of a book i ‘absorbed’ during my senior year in high school: “One Two Three... Infinity” by George Gamow. In 1956 Gamow was awarded the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for popularizing science. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sean Carroll, and Steven Pinker credit the book with informing or downright setting their careers. It was largel

Greetings, dear reader. I trust you will find some delectable items in this week’s science smorgasbord.

SPACE

Learned geophysicists years ago concluded that Mars has a hot liquid inner core, unlike Earth with its hot solid inner core. They calculated that Mars’ gravitational pressure is insufficient to make molten iron solid, as is the case with our home planet. But there’s nothing like good data: the seismometers on NASA’s Insight mission clinched that theory using 

Greetings, I hope you're warming up, SciSchmoozers!

I hope that you are enjoying the weather. Soon it will either be too cold or hot aga

Hello Friends, Fans, and Supporters of Science,

I hope that you haven't started to miss the rain yet.

A couple of months ago I wrote about how science and well established practice were being ignored in our courts and in some parts of governme

Hello Science Fans,

I hope that the break in the weather we have been having has been enjoyable. Quite honestly I rarely check the weather forecast so I can’t comment on what’s ahead, except to let you know that I guarantee there will be weather and we have no option but to deal with it. The other side of that is that I am amazed at how accurate forecasting can be.

It’s time to plan to Eclipse, remember, there will be weather! On Oct 14, 2023 there will be an annu

Welcome again,

We get such good feedback from so many of you that i often think of you as colleagues.

Lately i’ve been living less than a hundred meters from a heavily-traveled 6-lane, 55 mph thoroughfare. (Quick question: ¿Of the world’s 190+ nations, how many officially use “miles” instead of kilometers for road signs? Answer below.) All but a tiny portion of the vehicles zooming by are gobbling up fossil fuel and spewing out CO². There’s not much i can do about that … but i did a little. I made up cards printed on one side, “Make your next vehicle F³ (Fossil Fuel Free). Buy Electric and refuel at home.” On the other side i printed the following: