SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has a new lease on life – and a Goldilocks planet to listen at. Eighteen years ago this month, the film CONTACT was released, exploring the possibility of contact with life on other stars. The central idea of the film was to listen: Radio signals can travel through space,… Read More »
If the Paris accords fail, GeoEngineering may offer our last best hope for beating global warming… but there is much we do not yet know. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are at a 2 million year high, with most of the rise since 1900. In response, global temperatures are rising rapidly. If nothing is done to… Read More »
Sometimes important things happen, right under our eyes, without anyone noticing. That thought occurred to David Bradford as he stood looking at a quiet lake high in the Sierra mountains of California in the summer of 1988. Bradford, a biologist, had hiked all day to get to the lake, and when he got there his… Read More »
It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between scientific investigation and good detective work. This spring, scientists were called in to solve a mystery that Sherlock Holmes would have enjoyed. Our mystery starts in April in Kentucky, the Bluegrass State. At this time of year, the lush pastures of Kentuckys many horse farms become… Read More »
Prospects for the world’s future encountered a serious setback last weekend when efforts by the UN to forge an international global warming treaty collapsed. Why? The United States insisted on a “pragmatic” provision that would lessen the impact of the treaty on our economy. Objecting, the 15-nation European Union and over 100 other countries argued… Read More »
I was recently bemused to learn that Mt. Everest is not in the same place it was last year. Using precise satellite measurements, scientists have determined the mountain peak is creeping northward. Its steps are small ones — each year, its journey takes it about the width of your fingernail further to the north. Little… Read More »
Like most of us, I try to eat healthy food. I really do. But I have a weakness for fast food especially Big Macs. My wife and daughters have tried for many years to cure me of this addiction, to no avail. Every few weeks, sure as taxes, I encounter a Big Mac too… Read More »
The Obama administration faced up to an unusual and unusually interesting legal issue these last weeks. At the heart of it were polar bears. You know, the big white ones that live in the artic and can be seen cavorting at the Saint Louis Zoo. Who doesn’t love polar bears? A photo of a cute… Read More »
This last week we learned of two Manhattan high school students who, in a science project, gave us a glimpse of the future. They asked a simple question: “When you buy fish, do you get the kind of fish you think you are buying/” Anyone who has bought fish at the market or ordered fish… Read More »
This is the last day of the old millennium. In less than 24 hours the twentieth century will be over. As we approach tomorrow, it is impossible to avoid a certain apprehension. Are we are walking into light, or over a cliff? Lacking a crystal ball, we must look to the past as our only… Read More »
Next Tuesday, for the first time in history, the world will have six billion inhabitants. It is with a certain sense of shock that I realize the world’s population has doubled since I graduated from high school in 1960. The world seemed to me already full of people then, the cities crowded, spreading suburbs and… Read More »
Every mile you drive your car releases about a pound of CO2 into the air. How many miles do you drive in a year? Now think about the natural gas that heats your home, the electricity that lights it ( mostly generated by the burning of fossil fuels). Your life is pumping an enormous amount… Read More »
We humans are newcomers to North America. Just how new is a point of bitter controversy among archaeologists. Work reported last month at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Philadelphia has added fuel to the fire. Like all good fights in science, this one involves new data that run counter to… Read More »
Today is commencement at Washington University. Several hundred of the graduating seniors will have taken a course I teach there on how biology impacts important public issues. As they graduate into a new century, I want to repeat to this broader newspaper audience what I told my students about the future they are about to… Read More »
This week the Senate began considering legislation to combat global warming. A carbon dioxide emissions “cap-and-trade” system, it seems to have little chance of becoming law. It is, however, a welcome sign that our government is beginning to come to grips with a problem that has the entire world worried. In this week’s column I… Read More »
Television replaced radio as America’s primary means of home entertainment in the 1950s, and in the half-century since many critics have complained that its great potential as an educational venue has never been fully realized. However, programs marketed as entertainment are sometimes suprisingly educational, none more than the CSI programs shown on the CBS network… Read More »
