Diverse perspectives on science and medicine
JUNO REPORTS ON JUPITER’S DOINGS The Juno spacecraft has delivered her first data dump on her target Jupiter, the largest object in our Solar System. The result is dozens of papers in Geophysical Research Letters
23ANDME AND YOU IN THE DATABASE The gene-testing company 23andMe professed itself delighted at the government’s recent permission to sell its new disease-gene testing kits directly to the public. And no wonder. That’s because the
LET’S GO TO MARS! Last week it was all about those 7 new planets that are “only” 39 light-years away and might perhaps possibly maybe be a home for life. But let’s get real: There’s
HUZZAH! SEVEN “NEARBY” “HABITABLE” PLANETS! Not to denigrate the scientific achievement, which is noteworthy for its novelty and sophistication. Not to denigrate (much) the excitement on Twitter and other media, rounded up by Becky Ferreira
By now it should have been possible to get away from our new presidency here at On Science Blogs. January 2017 is ending and the Year of the Rooster, bringer of light, is upon us.
Here’s the annual On Science Blogs look back at some of last year’s doings in science and medicine. At least some were encouraging. Still, many believe that 2016 has concluded not a moment too soon,
ONCE MORE, LIFE ON MARS Let’s take a deep hopeful breath and look forward, shall we? People have discovered that it’s pretty difficult to move to Canada. So there’s a lot of talk about going
DANCING IN THE STREETS OVER NEARBY PLANET PROXIMA B It’s now perfectly respectable to talk about interstellar travel, says Cornell astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger. She’s coauthor of an unpublished paper speculating about how life could survive
A NASA BEST; JUNO SPACE PROBE HITS JUPITER ORBIT PERFECTLY Inserting the space probe Juno into Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, Independence Day, the US’s most sacred holiday, wasn’t accidental of course. NASA is always
IS POLITICAL SCIENCE REALLY A SCIENCE? The social sciences, especially psychology, have been routinely disparaged in this space, the reasons being chiefly lack of rigor and sloppy methodology. (There are also noteworthy cases of outright