Am I the only one fascinated by the issue of currency conversion in literature? When a posh fictional nobleman is rumored to have an income of such-and-such, or when a […]
Search Results
You searched for: G. D.
100 years ago, we thought the Milky Way was the full extent of the Universe, containing everything. Now, we know we’re just one of many. But how many? “The human mind […]
To celebrate 10 years of images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter, the German Aerospace Center has compiled a video that gives sweeping digital views of the planet’s landscape.
We normally think of the Big Bang as the very beginning of our Universe, but we now know the story goes back even before it. Here’s how. “The aim of science […]
How a “New Star” appearing in 1572 paved the way for us to truly begin understanding our Universe. “I conclude, therefore, that this star is not some kind of comet […]
The mechanism for changing your mindset through messaging is the same as for changing a physical behavior: a targeted and limited resolution practiced relentlessly until it becomes automatic.
As teachers begin using new and questionable methods, will students suffer and get left behind? “Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.”–Dan Quayle As the first full […]
How the second most common element in the Universe is being lost from Earth, most of it for good. “I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just […]
No snark, no sarcasm, no judgement, just the genuine, honest answers to 22 creationist messages. “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; […]
This looks like a pretty standard map of a bit of Denmark. In fact, it is no such thing. For there isn’t really a town called Köbstad in Denmark, […]
The stars, gas and dust of our own galaxy dominates our night sky. But what secrets does the Universe hold beyond that? “Who are we? We find that we live on […]
The greatest Messier object of them all, a treat all winter long. “What caused me to undertake the catalog was the nebula I discovered above the southern horn of Taurus on […]
This image is an illustration of a knot of gas that is six trillion miles, or about one light year long.
IN THE old days of the three European missions – imperialism, colonialism, and orientalism – scholars insisted on the existence of Asian “philosophies” and, naturally, they called Asian thinkers “philosophers.” […]
When all the galaxies, stars, gas, dust, dark matter and all the other forms of matter and radiation are summed together, its energy still pales in comparison to dark energy. […]
The tens of thousands of turbines generating power around the world on land and, increasingly, at sea, represent a stunning reversal of fortune for an industry that fifty years ago was virtually non-existent.
Last week, I invited a few friends to come together and talk about Bitcoin. The conversation was wide ranging (read: ill-organized), but interesting. Three key topics emerged out of the […]
A disquieting paper has been published in the journal Criminal Justice Ethics, that suggests the decisions of forensic scientists are being influenced by payments for convictions. The authors Roger Koppl […]
There’s been a lot of criticism lately of badly written science, following the publication of Michael Billig’s Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences in which […]
Up until 800 years ago, guilt and innocence in the UK was regularly determined not by judge and jury but through a process known as trial by ordeal: “There were […]
One of the many paradoxes of time is that it doesn’t flow by smoothly. Although we agree that time is objective—we don’t set our clocks arbitrarily after all—it feels as […]
The modern dictator needs only to become a client-state to Russia or China (or to be Russia or China), and there is nothing he can’t get away with. We members of open societies have the power to change that. All we need is the resolve.
A little bit of game theory suggests how Edward Snowden’s odyssey might end.
The surveillance state is here, and it is apparently here to stay. The question moving forward is how effective the U.S. constitutional system and democratic culture will be in keeping the American version from slipping into Chinese mode.
As we head out into the future we know that we can predict certain kinds of disruptive technologies.
This is how the Left gets tough – rather than confront actual problems or genuine malefactors, they hyperventilate about invented ones, at the expense of innocent people.
Can experimental findings look too good to be true? Last week I wrote a blog post about some experiments showing a counterintuitive finding regarding how the need to urinate affects […]
Ramez Naam looks at the power of innovation to overcome natural resource and environmental challenges.
Our global society has entered a period of accelerated change, and these changes are reshaping entire industries, economic models and institutions. Our blind spot comes from the fact that we […]
Even if NASA’s Mars Curiosity mission doesn’t end up accomplishing another thing other than establishing the fact that there was once flowing water on the planet’s surface, it will have served […]