What is a scientist to make of UFO sightings by reasonable people? Have you ever sat on a roof on a cold December night looking up into the sky for flying reindeer? I have. Many readers have asked what happened that Christmas eve when I and my daughter Caitlin set out to scientifically test the… Read More »
Its always a temptation as a scientist to immediately discount ideas that seem on the surface to be silly. Why? Because almost all silly ideas turn out to be just that — silly. Every once in a while, however, a real lamebrain suggestion turns out to be spot-on. Because there is so much that science… Read More »
It would seem I am not alone in loosing single socks. My April column exploring why my home seems to loose single socks — not pairs, but single socks — has generated more mail than any column I have written over three years! In deference to the strong interest expressed by my readers in this… Read More »
Everybody has something that bugs them, some nagging question that just wont go away. For me, its Where are my socks going? All my life, for as far back as I can remember, I have been loosing socks. Not pairs of socks, mind you, but single socks. I first became aware of this peculiar phenomenon… Read More »
One evening next week I am to audition for a part in Saint Louis Shakespeare’s upcoming production of WAR OF THE WORLDS (Don’t ask me why a Shakespeare company is putting on a play based on a radio drama by H. G. Wells!), in which invaders from Mars attack Earth. With this sort of prospect… Read More »
Childhood memories have a way of sticking to the unconscious like glue, then popping up at unexplained times. That happened to me this week, reading a report of a new species of mammal found in Southeast Asia. This memory has been hiding within my head almost 40 years. I finished high school in midyear, 1960,… Read More »
I have often wondered why my parents named me after a dragonslayer. They had selected the family name Sparhawk for me, but when I was born they examined me carefully and instead pronounced “George.” A slender shy boy, I would have loved to have been called “Hawk.” Instead they named me after a saint famous… Read More »
