Plant genetically modified, or GM, crops anywhere in Europe and in a trice you will have a crowd of protesters at your gate waving “Frankenfood” placards and lying down in front of tractors.
Articles from June 2022
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NGC 2336 • ESA/Hubble & NASA, V. Antoniou
Even he couldn’t write this script
The noted film director David Lean always felt a bit of a dummy compared to his more academically gifted younger brother.
A tardigrade • Image by Schokraie E, Warnken U, Hotz-Wagenblatt A, Grohme MA, Hengherr S, et al. (CC BY 2.5)
A little reminder of reality’s scale
I have a biologist colleague who knows what a fellow likes. As a retirement gift, she gave me a bottle containing a few ounces of water, some algae, assorted microscopic organisms, and — wonder of wonders! — a few tardigrades.
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo
Will Bobos ever see scientific truth?
Is scientific knowledge true? Or is it just one more made-up story of the world, with no greater claim on truth than any other?
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Shedding light on the sky’s secrets
To the untutored eye the sky seems two dimensional — a dome of glittering dots just up there, like the light-flecked ceiling of the terrestrial ballroom. Only now and then, and only to the prepared imagination, does night’s third dimension reveal itself, as during an eclipse of the sun or moon.
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A bee’s life tells us about ourselves
Even as kids, 50 years ago, we heard about Karl von Frisch and the dancing bees.
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We are poorer for paving paradise
The natural contours of a landscape mean nothing to an 80-ton Caterpillar bulldozer. A stand of trees, an outcrop of granite, or a purling stream can be erased in a trice.
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Intelligent design does not compute
How to account for the diversity and complexity of life on Earth?
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Only mind knows if placebo works
Placebo Domino in regione vivorum, or “I will please the Lord in the land of the living.” This verse from the Latin Vulgate Bible brought the word placebo into the English language.
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Two different paths to enlightenment
The writer and conservationist Wendell Berry is just the latest in a long line of critics who accuse science of being a religion.