This week, Science Musings offers Valentine’s Day advice to the lovelorn.
Photo by Marisa Barrett on Unsplash
Model of a DNA molecule • Photo by CGP Grey (CC BY 2.0)
Time for a new Origin of Species
The mid-19th century was fossil time in science.
A juvenile Rhesus macaque • Photo by Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Grappling with moral arithmetic
An adorable 3‑month-old rhesus monkey looks out at us from the pages of the journal Science. His name is ANDi. He has, apparently, not a care in the world; a healthy little scamp who is presumably treated affectionately by his keepers.
Map of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation developed with the data provided by the COBE satellite • NASA (Public Domain)
Fact is, science is skepticism
Astonishing fact Number 1: The universe began billions of years ago in an explosion from an infinitely small, infinitely hot seed of energy. The Big Bang.
Tourist cruises at the Galápagos Islands • Photo by Deb Dowd on Unsplash
Darwin might have warned us
On Dec. 27, 1835, young Charles Darwin, in the fifth year of his ’round-the-world voyage as naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle, posted a letter to his sister, Caroline, from New Zealand.
“The Triumph of Death” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1562)
Plague’s cause had a job to do
For many of us of a certain age, the words “Black Death” evoke images from Ingmar Bergman’s film, “The Seventh Seal.”
Photo by Ryan Jacobson on Unsplash
A year mapped for stargazing
Thank goodness for Guy Ottewell. If he didn’t exist, I would have to invent him.
Photo by Isaac Martin on Unsplash
Where did we go wrong?
The morning after. We wake to the detritus of excess.
Cedar waxwing • Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash
Making some sense of cosmic complexity
It was one of those unexpected encounters that brighten a day: a leafless winterberry tree covered with cedar waxwings busily gobbling the scarlet fruit.
Artist's rendering of the Extremely Large Telescope, which has supplanted the proposed OWL instrument • Swinburne Astronomy Productions/ESO (CC BY 4.0)
Telescopes seek blasts from past
To be human is to be interested in origins.