Random Thoughts

Last week, the Western Plant Health Association, which represents California, Arizona and Hawaii companies involved in plant nutrients, soil amendments, agricultural minerals and crop protection…

G.K.Chesterton (1874 – 1936) visited the United States twice, in 1921 and 1930.  I have recently been reading Sidelights on New London and Newer York and Other Essays, published in 1932…

When we think of science today, we think of Big Science, like the Large Hadron Collider and the Human Genome Project. That makes sense, Americans like big and bold, but that was not always the case.…

Science 2.0 family, it is with great pride that I announce I have been named the president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).  If you are not familiar with it, the Council was…

Following my Ten Commandments for Tech Companies – which changed their behavior not one whit – I offer these shalt-nots for US airlines. Thus saith the Flying Professor: 1.    Never,…

When Seattle man, Jason Padgett, walked into a bar for a drink a few years ago, he was an ordinary man with seemingly average intelligence leading an unremarkable life. He worked contentedly in his…

I wasn’t really into it at first. Meditation was hard. It required sitting and quieting my mind, neither of which I was very good at when I first got sober. Honestly, a thirty minute meditation…

Recently two Transgender women were shot to death because they made a wrong turn and did not listen to or possibly did not understand the commands of the guards at the gate of the NSA.*  That…

More and more animal shelters and zoos have begun playing human music, the kind of fad that people who anthropomorphize animal behavior say works even though there is no evidence. Now a new study by…

In 1966, when the "Star Trek" television show debuted, it was revolutionary - not just in the ways that are commonly stated, like that it took a stand against racism and petty geopolitics, we had…