The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich, came out in 1968. It predicted world famines due to uncontrolled population growth. Ehrlich took from several sources, but most of them were fundamentally based on Malthusianism, which came, unsurprisingly, from Thomas Malthus. Malthus noticed that the increasing farming production was linear because it was predicated on increasing the area
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Today I’m going to talk about vaccines. Just because I don’t have enough controversy in my life. (Pictures from here.) From what I’m seeing in the media these days, there are a lot of people who neither know what a vaccine actually is nor what risk actually is. So, let’s talk about that. Your body
My son just graduated and was pinned as an RN. We are, of course, extremely proud. (Picture from here.) He worked very hard to do this in a nursing intensive program. He did not have a strong background in the sciences—his degree was in psychology. But he took many prep courses. Aced them. Aced his
Despite sometimes writing science fiction and maybe because of writing and reading it, my questions about proliferating technology inspire me to declare myself a NeoLuddite. I’ve long identified as a NeoLuddite, but the recent onslaught of AI — Artificial Intelligence, for those who might be living in an internet-free ice cave in Antarctica — calls for another
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Back in the middle of August, Wendy and I attended WorldCon 2025 in Seattle. I was on three panels. This one was on What is Domestication? Here is a PDF of my notes. I was unable to directly include the outline format from word. WhatIsDomestication? Before I forget, here is an article how RFK, Jr. is
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We’re going north to our cabin to do some work. It’s time to get out the blog entry early. And I think it’s time for Cheese Ends. (Picture from here.) The Most Ancient Boomerang Scientists have uncovered an ancient boomerang made from a mammoth tusk. The age is still indeterminate but it appears to be
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I had a blog entry written but it got a little angry. While I’m thinking about that, let’s talk about some interesting science. (Picture from here.) Mars magnetic anomaly explained Mars’ magnetic field is… weird. There’s a lot of evidence that Mars had a symmetrical magnetic field like ours. Earth’s magnetic field protects the planet
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Richard Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker in 1986. (Picture from here.) His intention was to refute the idea that the complexity of living systems made a Creator self-evident. The analogy was of finding a watch implied a watchmaker, a metaphor created by William Paley. I am not a fan of Dawkins in that I think
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Here are my notes from the Biology in SF panel: Biology in SF Use is by Symbolic representation Pick a desired heritage and match to a biological root species: e.g., Puppeteers and Kzin in Known Space vs herbivores and cats. Combine qualities to create a new species for use in a work. Taxonomic Approach Single
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I woke up thinking about taxonomy. Hence, today’s topic. Go figure. (Picture from here.) First, taxonomy is about successful lineages. Evolution doesn’t select for failed systems. Relative reproductive success is it’s only criteria. Therefore, even of species or families or classes go extinct, they existed because they were successful. This doesn’t mean a thing about
I was on the Ethology for Writers at Arisia this weekend. Here are my notes: Definition: study of the behavior of non-human animals. Comments: There was a comic I saw years ago. A collection of different animals such as a horse, a monkey, a human, a giraffe, an elephant. In the thought balloon over each
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Orgel’s Second Rule is “Evolution is smarter than you are.” (Picture from here.) I first heard this rule (unattributed at the time. Attributed by Francis Crick to Leslie Orgel) back when I was an undergraduate zoology major. It does not attribute intelligence to evolutionary design. It simply states that the solutions natural selection, spontaneous variation,
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I have very strong opinions and observations about the election but every time I tried to put them down in a rational and intellectually stimulating way it turned into a rant. I’m not going to inflict that on anyone. So, let’s have some cheese ends. (Picture from here.) —— The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory
Cheese Ends: 2024-11-18 Read More »
