A number of small items from NASA’s public relations efforts have caught my attention in the last several days, and — like pieces of a puzzle — I’m beginning to suspect that they all fit together in a way that points to a major upcoming announcement about Mars. But unfortunately I also suspect that […]
Science magazine has just published a peer-reviewed article examining the radioprotective (or anti-radiation) abilities of an emerging class of drugs. [1] This follows the recent announcements that two pharmaceutical/biotech companies have received government funding to further develop their respective anti-radiation drugs. According to the announcements for the research awards, the US Department of Defense is […]
Early on Wednesday morning (March 19, 2008), I was writing an article tentatively entitled “What is a Futurist?” when I heard on the radio of the death of Arthur C. Clarke. My first thought after hearing the news was that the world had lost one of the great modern futurists.
Clarke is perhaps best known for […]
On October 4, 1957, humans looked skyward and for the first time saw a manmade object orbiting over their heads. A dot of light passing west to east across the night sky, history’s first artificial satellite: Sputnik.*
At the time, much of the world’s reaction seemed political in nature. For Russians, Sputnik evoked a strong streak […]
Recently it seems like my iPod — when playing in Shuffle mode — displays an increasing ability to organize songs thematically. For example, while driving home during a thunderstorm, the iPod “randomly” plays a string of songs about rain (Love Reign O’er Me — both The Who and Pearl Jam versions, Somewhere Over the Rainbow […]