Archive for the 'Science' Category

Miskatonic Manuscript, Q&A part 3

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015

  (This follows part two in our week-long Q&A with Vin about his new novel, “The Miskatonic Manuscript.” Part two is here.) Q: It’s interesting how many people seem to judge a book by its cover. Many people, looking at the Testament of James cover art, assume it’s a religious tract. Others, reacting to the […]

‘Well, there’s nothing artificial about it’

Thursday, March 5th, 2015

The book “The Archaic Revival” (HarperCollins 1991), which is a compilation of writings by and interviews with the late entheogen pioneer Terence McKenna, concludes with an interview conducted by Nevill Drury as it appeared in the Autumn, 1990 (Vol. 11, No. 1) issue of the Australian magazine “Nature and Health.” An excerpt of the most […]

‘Survival could not be expected’ (‘Why I may appear to have been writing less of late,’ Part Two of Three)

Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

1941. War came. The Navy, sometimes befuddled but even then the wisest of the services, made dad a radio man, on the little destroyer escort Raymond. As most 20-year-olds would, dad took the rigors of tropical service in stride, writing in his surviving notebook about the traditional ceremony of the pollywogs’ first crossing of the […]

What would an engineer need to know about ethics? (‘Why I may appear to have been writing less of late,’ Part Three of Three)

Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

Dad always thought those studying the sciences should be taught more of the history, the philosophy, and especially the ethical dilemmas which had been faced by their predecessors. Those in charge of the university’s Electrical Engineering (and Computer Science!) Department scoffed. Their slates were full helping these kids schedule all the “How to fit Tab […]

Desert tortoise shell-game continues

Saturday, September 29th, 2012

Sixty desert tortoises, each equipped with a radio transmitter and trailing a small antenna, were released Sept. 21 at the southern end of the Nevada National Security Site, 60 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Researchers plan to track the critters over the next year as part of a $100,000 study ultimately aimed at increasing the […]

Science: Something made up to justify their latest power-grab

Sunday, September 2nd, 2012

“Too many elected officials in Washington are still calling climate change a liberal hoax,” declared U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, in prepared remarks as he opened his fifth annual “National Clean Energy Summit” show in Las Vegas Aug. 7. “They falsely claim scientists are still debating whether carbon pollution is warming the planet. …” But “This […]

Another one bites the dust

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

Making national news, another heavily tax-subsidized alternative energy operation — the Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas — went belly-up last week, closing its 214,000-square-foot facility a year after it opened. A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems, Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits for the North Las […]

Snails. Got to preserve the snails.

Sunday, May 6th, 2012

First it was tiny fish. Now anti-development extremists hope to use snails no bigger than your little fingernail as cat’s paws to block the Southern Nevada Water Authority plan to pipe groundwater here from east central Nevada. In March, state regulators granted the authority permission to pump up to 27 billion gallons of groundwater a […]

On March 29, will ‘Save the Whales’ hold a birthday party for Edwin Drake?

Monday, February 27th, 2012

I heard the president on the radio, Thursday. In Florida to attend a $30,000-a-person fund-raiser at the home of Dallas Mavericks guard Vince Carter, President Barack Hussein Obama dropped by the University of Miami and — with comic timing as good as any stand-up comic — told the following joke about congressional Republicans: “You can […]

Wetlands, wetlands everywhere (Yet not a drop to drink)

Saturday, January 7th, 2012

Fed by streams tumbling from the Selkirk Mountains and bordered by parkland, the 19-mile stretch of clear water in the Idaho Panhandle known as Priest Lake has been called “the Lake Tahoe of the upper Northwest,” The Washington Post reports. Houses and resorts crowd the privately owned lakeshore; piers and a marina jut into its […]