Hans Rosling, who died of pancreatic cancer 2017 February 7 at the age of 68, was professor of international health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He was a gifted public speaker who specialized in correcting popular misconceptions, including pessimistic … Continue reading
The latest issue of Sky & Telescope has a short article by astronomy professor Andrew Franknoi on a project to address the high cost of college textbooks. OpenStax, a non-profit based at Rice University, has commissioned a series of new … Continue reading
Back on June 1 President Trump gave a speech (official transcript here) announcing that the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, claiming that the agreement “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.” Of … Continue reading
As you’re probably aware, there will be a solar eclipse 2017 August 21. Below is an animation created by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio showing the path of the Moon’s shadow across the United States. The total eclipse … Continue reading
The A Capella Science YouTube channel offers a remarkably good adaptation of the song “A Whole New World” from Disney’s Aladdin. In this version, it’s about the hunt for exoplanets orbiting other stars, concluding with a brief reference to the … Continue reading
This is a curious result that apparently (unlike some other things in psychology) is repeatable: People given a task requiring creativity (such as coming up with as many ways as possible to use paper cups) tend to do better if … Continue reading
Yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA was an image from the Curiosity rover showing what was at some point in the past very probably a beach on Mars and before that the bottom of a lake. NASA is … Continue reading
A couple of months ago I developed middle-back pain (also called thoracic back pain). I’d had lower back pain before, but this was different. Different but not any better. I don’t recommend either. After suffering a few weeks hoping in … Continue reading
The Boston Public Schools have embraced a bad map projection, specifically Gall-Peters. The so-called Peters projection is promoted as “more accurate,” but this is at best misleading. Even The Boston Globe, in most respects a pretty good newspaper, neglects to … Continue reading
Right after the election astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to talk about the cosmic view, live, immediately after the election. It’s still worth seeing, both entertaining and inspiring. There are three clips below, … Continue reading