Many communities in the United States are talking about banning plastic bags. Here in Ireland we’ve been required to bring our own shopping bags to the market for years. But Lord knows there’s still plenty of trash.
Articles with Life
Photo by Documerica on Unsplash
The shell of the textile cone snail, which resembles a pattern produced by cellular automata • Photo by Richard Ling (CC BY-SA 3.0)
‘New kind of science’ is not science at all
Stephen Wolfram’s “A New Kind of Science” arrived earlier this year in a blizzard of hype. As significant as the works of Newton and Darwin, said breathless touts, and the author seems to agree.
Photo by Kier In Sight on Unsplash
Life’s sweet beginnings
“How sweet it is,” said Jackie Gleason. Yes, life is sweet. Sugar is a key ingredient of all life on earth and has been since the beginning.
Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash
Organic machines aren’t expendable
They took the stage as representatives of “reason and wildness,” respectively, two articulate authors and thinkers who come at the world very differently.
Martian meteorite ALH84001 • NASA/JSC (Public Domain)
Just show us the life
It has been nearly a year since the headlines screamed “Life on Mars!”
Photo by Ravi Roshan on Unsplash
Define life? That’s easy to do…or is it?
What is life? No question in science is more fundamental. No question is more difficult to answer.
The lifeless surface of Mars • NASA/JPL/MSSS, processing by Olivier de Goursac (CC BY-SA 3.0)
All you need is (eons) of time
The first media reports of evidence for life on Mars were pure NASA gush. Scientists discover evidence of life on Mars. Give us a few billion bucks and we’ll go look for it.
Microscopic structures within Martian meteorite ALH 84001 • NASA (Public Domain)
It’s a small world after all
Last week’s announcement [in 1996] by NASA of evidence of life on Mars was top-of-the-front-page news in this remote corner of Ireland.
Hypochrosis baenzigeri • Photo by budak (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The moth that makes an elephant cry
A photograph in the book review section of the journal Nature shows three moths drinking from a trickle of liquid that flows from a huge glistening eye.
One method of getting around • Photo by Steve (CC BY 2.0)
The nature of the wheel is just not in our nature
Inchworms inch. Whirligigs whirl. Sidewinders wind. Grasshoppers hop. It’s called getting around, and the animal kingdom has devised a thousand ways to do it.