Welcome dear science-appreciative reader,

When Avian Influenza H5N1 is detected in one chicken on an egg farm, it and all of the tens of thousands of other chickens there are destroyed. Over 50 million birds in the U.S. were destroyed this way last year. ¿Why not vaccinate chickens? It isn’t expensive. It’s because eggs and chickens sold for food are tested for infection and the vaccine causes a positive result. A vaccinated bird appears to be an infected bird and cannot be exported for food. ¿What is the danger of eating an infected bird or egg? 

Thylacine - Credit: Al Jazeera

Thank you, dear reader, for joining us again and for your kind comments.

Christmas Island Rat, Wooly Mammoth, Passenger Pigeon, Thylacine (a marsupial: carries newborns in a pouch). These animals are extinct but efforts are currently underway to “bring them back.” In each case, researchers are compiling the complete genomes of the extinct animals using frozen carcasses and museum specimens. This 26-minute video on current efforts to de-extinct the Thylacine is fascinating and well-crafted. Personally, i question efforts to de-extinct the Passenger Pigeon. It traveled in flocks numbering in the hundreds of millions that stripped crops and orchards and left towns covered in Passenger Pigeon poop. Best of course is to

Hello again Science Fans, and welcome to the Year of the Rabbit!

The weather has been on everyone’s mind over the past month. The last time the Bay Area received this much rain in a 3 week period, Abraham Lincoln was President! Some areas were hit worse than others, of course. This all started the day after I left for Europe, and stopped when I returned. Strictly a coincidence, I assure you.

Most of us would recognize that there is a correlation between climate change and all the extreme weather events occurring around the world. For the past four years, 

Hello Science Fans,

This break from drought conditions has certainly been full of new or repeated experiences. I remember when the anthropogenic climate

Happy New Year!

The holidays came to a sudden end with the happenings in Washington. Thank goodness it wasn’t a repeat of 2 years ago. I don’t know about you but I have been craving some good background music and images. Instead of the old Yule Log video you might want to tr

Happy New Year, science fans. Thank you for joining me today.

As technology promises better and longer lives, the ‘situation on the ground’ is dismal for much of the world’s 8 billion people - but over the long arc of history, “it’s getting better.” As we and our neighbors and our children tune into how alike we all are - emotionally and physiologically - caring for ‘strangers’ becomes easier. I’m expecting 2023 to show progress in this regard. Consider this for a New Year’s Resolution: I will increase the range of people that I consider to be coequal with myself, deserving of the same rights, dignities, and protections. (Tim Minchin gives an 

herb masters

Hello Science Fans looking to fuse and not to fuse…

There was a major story in science this week that

Hello Rainy Science Fans,

There are two items that really jump to the front of what I have been thinking as I start to write this missive today. (A day early so that I can remind you about the first one!)

Sunday morning 12.11.22 marked the return of Orion (not Noelle and Alex’s son!) to earth completing the Artemis I mission around the Moon. I was 

Dear reader, so glad you’re reading this. Let me start by laying out some work we need to do.

I love maps of all kinds. The map above is based on Pew Research data of the percentage of people who agreed that "certain people can cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone." The stippled countries are those with insufficient data. No country had less than 9% of its population believing in wicked witchcraft. 

Greetings fellow Science Fans! We trust you have had enough to eat this Thanksgiving weekend and are ready for some science! Well, we have that, and a little more for you.

Start with the nuts!

As I was growing up, one of the highlights of the holidays for me was eating roasted chestnuts. My father would talk about buying bags of them from street vendors in Vienna where he grew up, using them to keep his hands warm (in addition to eating them). I haven’t had them in quite a while, but this Thanksgiving I decided to buy a few and roast them.

Hardly anyone I know has tasted a