It can't have been easy for former environmental activist Mark Lynas to change sides. His friends were on the anti-science side, he was a dutiful reader of The Guardian, where activists and environmental trade groups reign supreme, and he was adored there.But he had an ethical dilemma. How could he talk about the science consensus on climate change, despite generous potential funding by...
read moreWhen "Guardians of the Galaxy" was in development, I was skeptical. When I was a kid, they were simply different Avengers, in space. Seriously, they had a Major from America, an archer, a strong guy, etc. And everyone knows Marvel had sold off the movie rights to the popular characters to prevent bankruptcy so they had only B level characters left.But one of those B-level characters was Iron Man,...
read moreIn the mood for some science on Thanksgiving? Me too, science is the one thing that has not been steamrolled by Christmas. Instead, Thanksgiving is arguably the most scientific holiday, because it involves agriculture, chemistry and physics.If you are worried about chemicals, for example, there is good news on Thanksgiving: You can buy a 100 percent organic, shade-grown, no-GMO meal AND IT...
read moreIt's Halloween and I am in New York and I wanted to do something local. But since Sleepy Hollow does not have a way to get there by subway (I don't even know where I would rent a car in Manhattan, I suppose I could get there by bus, but even using a subway is a populist stretch for me) I instead decided to get up and create a Ghostbusters tour. Why? Because even though only three actual...
read moreLast week, the Western Plant Health Association, which represents California, Arizona and Hawaii companies involved in plant nutrients, soil amendments, agricultural minerals and crop protection products (basically, technologies such as fertilizer and pesticides), held its annual meeting in Maui and I was invited to speak about the issues involved in bringing agricultural science to a public that...
read moreWhen we think of science today, we think of Big Science, like the Large Hadron Collider and the Human Genome Project.That makes sense, Americans like big and bold, but that was not always the case. It used to be thatg science was a lonely occupation and asking for money was a negative. There was one man who turned science from being a solitary, somewhat modest endeavor into Big Science. His name...
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