Just last week, at the conclusion of the column on the dinosaur extinction debate, I wrote this: “Science is anything but a collection of dull facts: it’s a living, breathing, growing and very human enterprise. That’s what makes it fascinating.” That is, of course, true (would I lie to you?), but the fact is, nothing …
I finished Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman yesterday, and the most recent issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine today. I don’t know why I didn’t read Good Omens earlier: it’s brilliant. Exactly the right blend of Pratchettian humour and Gaimanian darkness, and of particular enjoyment to someone raised in the Church of …
I’ve been slowly playing my way through the computer game Gabriel Knight III (yes, I know, it’s ancient–what can I say? I was kind of busy the last three or four years), in which the characters are provided with a computerized reference to all things mystical. Turns out it really exists: it’s The MYSTICA.ORG and …
I hope this prediction is correct, although I rather imagine I’ll keep my keyboard for writing even when speech recognition is perfected–my brain has been wired to route my thoughts through a keyboard for something approaching 30 years. But I’ll bet there’ll be newer writers who take to dictating fiction the way I took to …
Some interesting history about how the concept of space stations went from science fiction to reality, thanks to Wernher von Braun.
God or Gaia–take your pick–has a sense of humour. A good match for Goose-zilla, which I wrote about here. Hmmm, I see a new book from Erich Von Daniken hitting the shelves soon… “Petting Zoo of the Gods.”
Popular Science enumerates the worst jobs in science–proof that I made the right decision in deciding to write about science (both fact and fiction) rather than pursuing it as a career.
This 30,000-year-old statue might be the work of Neanderthals…an interesting notion to me, since I’ve just spent many hours in the company of modern Neanderthals as envisioned by Robert J. Sawyer.
Incredibly, the remarkable life of Emily Chesley — author, aviatrix and 92-year-old pole vaulter — has been overlooked by historians and literary researchers alike…until now. I am honored to be, for the second year in a row, one of the judges for the prestigious Dr. Maximilian Tundra Memorial Poetry and Short Speculative Fiction Contest. (Note …
I suppose it’s too much to hope that this will energize the U.S. space program the way Sputnik did? *Sigh.* Yes, I suppose it is. Better brush up on Chinese if I want to retire on the moon, as the teenaged me fully expected to be able to do by the time I turned 65 …
For more than a decade now I’ve been writing a science column for the Regina Leader Post (and other places). Pretty much every column is now online, and I post each new column as it’s written. This week’s is now up; it’s on The Dinosaur Demise Debate. There’s a subscription form at the top of …
“Everybody knows” that the dinosaurs were killed off 65 million years ago by a giant meteor that slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula. But as is often the case in science, what “everybody knows” may be wrong. The asteroid impact theory has been dominant for 20 years, but there have always been doubters. They admit a …
