As a long-time Car and Driver addict (though I went cold turkey a few years ago and have recovered nicely since), I found this list of what magazine road-test evaluation terms really mean amusing.

Ever watch a movie and wonder how on Earth it ever got made? Be thankful it’s no worse. After all, they could have made some of these.

I just got my copies of my latest non-fiction children’s book, The Basics of Quantum Physics: Understanding the Photoelectric Effect and Line Spectra, from Rosen Publishing. On the extremely unlikely chance that someone reading this blog has been looking for a book just like this one–a 48-page intro to the very very basics of quantum …

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Israeli soldiers are experimenting with wrist-mounted video screens that can instantly feed them images from unmanned aerial drones. “We are fulfilling the science fiction movies that we see,” said Itzhak Beni, chief executive of the Elisra Group’s Tadiran Electronic Systems and Tadiran Spectralink companies.

Here’s a fascinating collection of colour photos of the First World War. Makes it all seem much more recent, doesn’t it?

Analysis of the cranium of the tiny human fossils recently found in Indonesia confirms that their brains had avanced features–and that Homo floresiensis was indeed a distinct species. Which is all very interesting, but what strikes me is that every news story about Homo floesiensis refers to them as “hobbits” or “hobbit-like.” I wonder what …

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No need to worry about nanobots running wild and reducing the world to a pile of gray goo, says the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. Well, that’s a relief. But when they say molecular manufacturing systems will be no more autonomous than inkjets, and “No one worries about an inkjet printer crawling off the desk and …

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An Israeli anti-terror veteran has come up with a relatively simple device that could allow people to escape high-rise buildings from any floor up to 1,155 feet.

Is the unusual, powerful burst of intermittent radio waves astronomers have detected coming from the direction of the galaxy’s center the burp of a dying pulsar–or something completely unknown to science?

Apparently, the length of a man’s index finger relative to his ring finger can predict how physically aggressive that man is likely to be all his life. Women do not show a similar effect. Getting out a ruler now…

One of the best-preserved mummies ever found has been uncovered behind a secret door hidden in a much older tomb.

Forsooth! By phone I have just been invited By the director of our theatre, Globe, To join withal the cast of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, For which I shall receive a modest sum. ‘Tis true that all three parts that she will give me Are small–but actors oft are heard to say, No role’s too small …

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