Wired magazine devotes a special issue each November to a "What's Next?" for the upcoming year - and that means it is time to think about what will happen in the world of science in 2015.Wired asked me to make a solid prediction, kind of like Jeane Dixon, except actually right about the future. Nostradamus, without all of the meaningless mumbo-jumbo. read...
read moreOpen access journals charge a fee to publish an article and make the content free to read. Traditional journals charge a subscription - they say the cost is needed because of 'added value' and that open access publications like PLOS One are not doing peer review of 30,000 articles a year, they are doing "editorial review", a peer-review lite where a reader looks the paper over and checks off 4...
read moreCredit: Millionaire Chess tournamentWhen I was a kid, no one outside Texas played Texas Hold 'Em. We played Stud, we played Draw, we played Liar's, but not Hold 'Em.Like Esther Williams movies and organic food, some things just make their way into pop culture and there is no rational reason why. Texas Hold 'Em is now the most popular card game in the country, every month or so our neighborhood...
read moreMackie's at Taypack Ltd. has been around since 2009 but the joint venture between the Taylors, Perthshire potato farmers, and Mackie's of Scotland, has finally figured out a way to differentiate themselves from Frito-Lay: they are making potato chips flavored like whisky and haggis.Everyone knows what Scotch is. Haggis is sheep stomach stuffed with meat and barley. Scotland's...
read moreGeorge Clooney used to copy my haircuts.People who knew me in the 1990s always marveled at my classic, parted-on-the-side, immaculately coiffed style. It was retro, just like the term "marvelous' is today. Prior to that, I had a classic Caesar no-part look. He showed up in the television show "E.R." sporting that and I dismissed it as coincidence but when he then jumped onto my "Mad Men without...
read moreCharles Hard Townes (AP Photo) Charles Townes has a lot going for him; he just saw his 99th birthday and 500 people showed up to cheer for him. He has a Nobel prize and a younger wife - Frances is 98.Oh, and he invented the laser, which just about everyone on planet Earth has heard of. read...
read more