Science & Society

Harry Lonsdale called me out of the blue last year,saying that he would be passing through Santa Cruz and wanted to discuss an idea he had. Well sure, I said, so we picked a day for him to visit. I…

Almost only devote religious people like Obama are allowed to climb to power in the West. Germany’s chancellor Merkel had to play down that she was a physicist in order to ensure the voters trust her…

Recently I became aware through Sullivan's post at LBRB that Autism Speaks was sponsoring the National Autism Association's national conference and that Andrew Wakefield was speaking at…

I haven’t had a TV in my life for the past few years. So, when I finally caught video clips from Cairo last week, I was astounded. Still images, no matter how provocative, miss so many dimensions of…

I think it's heartening that people are starting to talk about careers for PhDs past Academia. I've worked in science, I've worked at the edges of science, and I've worked outside of science. …

Facebook made an interesting move this week when it reversed its policy to allow drug companies to maintain pages closed to comments, and I am really curious how this will play out in the near and…

Look, we all know smoking is bad for you by now.  We don't need to spend billions of dollars telling people that but an entire industry has been built around getting people to stop, and it is…

I have said many times I think people are terrifically smart; they know a lot of science, though they tend to frame it through their politics.     The numbers bear me out - science literacy…

Here's a trivia question; what's the longest alliance in history? Unless you went by the title, you were probably stumped.  Maybe you believe it is England and Portugal at 638 years.   You…

As I wrote on facebook (for the sign of a professional writer is 'reuse words often'): It's official! As of today I am Professor Antunes, an aerospace engineering assistant professor at Capitol…