You’ve heard of René Descartes. 17th century French philosopher; cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am); first principles of enlightenment philosophy and science and all that. You might be less familiar with Descartes’ robot daughter Francine. The tale of her birth and gruesome death makes for a wild historical(ish) ride in its own right, but […]
Sally
It started with the maggots. One hot Australian January morning, unlucky beachcombers had discovered millions of the fleshy nubs orgiastically crawling over each other and everything else on Newport Beach. No one knew where they had come from, and the beach-storming maggots left without an explanation. But when they returned, it was for good. They […]
The fever and rash appeared the day before we were scheduled to get on a 747 from London to New York. Twin 1’s face was a streaky, sickly red except for death-pale stripes around her mouth. I knew what I was looking at, because Twin 2 had just finished the last of her 10-day course […]
Beginning in April, the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine will no longer be able to provide patients with homeopathic remedies funded by the UK’s taxpayers. This is part of a larger UK crackdown on homeopathy that has gotten underway over the past 18 months. Late in 2016, homeopathy was banned in one of the country’s […]
This post first ran November 30, 2011. Last week, I fell in the Thames. I only fell in up to my thighs, but the gaping, bleeding puncture on my shin, inside which I could see geologic-looking layers of anatomy — that was a bad sign. So I found myself at the A&E (that’s ER to […]
What scientific concept would everyone be better off knowing? When the magazine Edge asked mathematician and economist Eric Weinstein, he described the following: What rigorous system would be capable of tying together an altered reality of layered falsehoods in which absolutely nothing can be assumed to be as it appears. Such a system, in continuous […]
Inspired by true events Me: Alexa. Good morning. Alexa: Good morning! On this day in 1961, NASA sent a chimpanzee named Ham into space, flying 155 miles up in the Mercury capsule. But these scientists weren’t just aping around. This mission was designed to tell them about – Me: Alexa stop. Alexa, did […]
When the ancient Greeks wanted to get something done, they really committed. In 499 B.C., in a bid to get out of an unpleasant job assignment, Histaeus, the leader of Miletus, plotted a rebellion against the Persian king Darius the Great. Elaborately coded missives sent to co-conspirators would only rouse suspicion. He needed something much […]