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A sprawling research program aims to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting data at the chaotic interface of ocean and atmosphere

Forest loss is thought to have played a part in record low rainfall across South America this year, in a sign that environmental destruction is accelerating climate collapse

Spintronic devices work with spin textures caused by quantum-physical interactions. Scientists have now studied graphene-cobalt-iridium heterostructures at BESSY II. The results show how two desired quantum-physical effects reinforce each other in these heterostructures. This could lead to new spintronic devices based on these materials.

Spintronic devices work with spin textures caused by quantum-physical interactions. Scientists have now studied graphene-cobalt-iridium heterostructures at BESSY II. The results show how two desired quantum-physical effects reinforce each other in these heterostructures. This could lead to new spintronic devices based on these materials.

Medically evacuating an astronaut from space is difficult and expensive, and a new model predicts that one in three long-duration moon missions may require it

For the second time in its 179-year history, Scientific American, which has become increasingly lame in its science reporting but increasingly “progressive” in its politics (see all my posts about this rag here), has decided to endorse a political candidate. I consider this endorsement—or any ensorsement—an abrogation of institutional neutrality that should go with science journals and magazines. I am opposed to science magazines making political or ideological statements in general. Of course Sci Am endorsed Harris, but I’d be just as opposed if they had endorsed Trump.) My main objections to an endorsement per se are fourfold:

1. It’s performative, designed to show the virtue of the magazine, and will accomplish nothing.
2. It’s been shown that when science journals endorese political candidates, it reduces not only the credibility of the journal, but of science itself in the eyes of the public.
3. The purpose of a science magazine is to present science, not endorse ideologies or politics. If ideological endorsements becomes normal—and they are becoming normal—then science magazines will morph into political magazines.  It’s as if the National Review published an editorial endorsing string theory.
4. If you argue that the endorsement is simply because Trump would do more damage to the scientific enterprise than would Harris, then why does the endorsement include a lot of issues that have nothing to do with that mission: like approving of Harris’s stand on abortion? (Again, I’m firmly on her side in this, but science magazines shouldn’t be giving endorsements for debatable issues like abortion.)

Blame editor Laura Helmuth, who has taken the magazine to its present depths and must have approved this endorsement.

But let someone more articulate than I give his critique: writer Tom Nichols writing in The Atlantic. I’ve also put a link Scientific American’s long endorsement below. Click to read, or find the Atlantic piece archived here.

Like me, Nichols considers Trump a scientific ignoramus and someone whose actions, during the pandemic, almost certainly injured people:

I understand the frustration that probably led to this decision. Donald Trump is the most willfully ignorant man ever to hold the presidency. He does not understand even basic concepts of … well, almost anything. (Yesterday, he explained to a woman in Michigan that he would lower food prices by limiting food imports—in other words, by reducing the supply of food. Trump went to the Wharton School, where I assume “supply and demand” was part of the first-year curriculum.) He is insensate to anything that conflicts with his needs or beliefs, and briefing him on any topic is virtually impossible.

When a scientific crisis—a pandemic—struck, Trump was worse than useless. He approved the government program to work with private industry to create vaccines, but he also flogged nutty theories about an unproven drug therapy and later undermined public confidence in the vaccines he’d helped bring to fruition. His stubborn stupidity literally cost American lives.

It makes sense, then, that a magazine of science would feel the need to inform its readers about the dangers of such a man returning to public office. To be honest, almost any sensible magazine about anything probably wants to endorse his opponent, because of Trump’s baleful effects on just about every corner of American life. (Cat Fancy magazine-—now called Catster-—should be especially eager to write up a jeremiad about Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance. But I digress.)

Catster??!  Was Cat Fancy considered politically incorrect, perhaps implying that people were having sex with cats? But I digress, too. For after noting the above, Nichols still disagrees with Helmuth’s decision to endorse Harris.

Strange as it seems to say it, a magazine devoted to science should not take sides in a political contest. For one thing, it doesn’t need to endorse anyone: The readers of a magazine such as Scientific American are likely people who have a pretty good grasp of a variety of concepts, including causation, the scientific method, peer review, and probability. It’s something of an insult to these readers to explain to them that Trump has no idea what any of those words mean. They likely know this already.

And here are the reasons Nichols opposes political endorsements in general. The bold headings are mine.

They won’t sway the readers. Nichols has already said that the readers are too savvy to be influenced by the magazine. Indeed, I felt patronized when I read the endorsement, even though I agree in the main with the article’s opinions about Trump. And, Nichols says, Trump voters have pretty much made up their minds and won’t be swayed by what this magazine says:

Now, I am aware that the science and engineering community has plenty of Trump voters in it. (I know some of them.) But one of the most distinctive qualities of Trump supporters is that they are not swayed by the appeals of intellectuals. They’re voting for reasons of their own, and they are not waiting for the editors of Scientific American to brainiac-splain why Trump is bad for knowledge.

Well, there are people on the fence, and perhaps they might be influenced, right? Perhaps. But one of the biggest arguments about science magazines taking ideological stands is that they reduce the public’s trust in both the magazine and science. This is pretty well known from the Nature study cited next:

Political stands of magazines reduce public trust in science.

In fact, we have at least some evidence that scientists taking sides in politics can backfire. In 2021, a researcher asked a group that included both Biden and Trump supporters to look at two versions of the prestigious journal Nature—one with merely an informative page about the magazine, the other carrying an endorsement of Biden. Here is the utterly unsurprising result:

The endorsement message caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters. This distrust lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature, as evidenced by substantially reduced requests for Nature articles on vaccine efficacy when offered. The endorsement also reduced Trump supporters’ trust in scientists in general. The estimated effects on Biden supporters’ trust in Nature and scientists were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant.

In other words, readers who supported Biden shrugged; Trump supporters decided that Nature was taking sides and was therefore an unreliable source of scientific information.

To me this is the most important issue, and is why I keep my political views out of lectures on science, like when I’m defending evolution. I could go on and on in such lectures about how Republicans oppose evolution far more than do Democrats, and thus the audience should vote Democratic, but that would accomplish nothing save reduce my credibility about evolution. “Coyne must be pushing this issue because he’s a Democrat,” they’d say.

The Scientific American editorial ventured into fields that had little or nothing to do with science, and also dealt with debatable issues that can’t be “scientifically” settled.

But even if Scientific American’s editors felt that the threat to science and knowledge was so dire that they had to endorse a candidate, they did it the worst way possible. They could have made a case for electing Harris as a matter of science acting in self-defense, because Trump, who chafes at any version of science that does not serve him, plans to destroy the relationship between expertise and government by obliterating the independence of the government’s scientific institutions. This is an obvious danger, especially when Trump is consorting with kooks such as Laura Loomer and has floated bringing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crackpot circus into the government.

Instead, the magazine gave a standard-issue left-liberal endorsement that focused on health care, reproductive rights, gun safety, climate policy, technology policy, and the economy. Although science and data play their role in debates around such issues, most of the policy choices they present are not specifically scientific questions: In the end, almost all political questions are about values—and how voters think about risks and rewards. Science cannot answer those questions; it can only tell us about the likely consequences of our choices.

. . . . Also unhelpful is that some of the endorsement seemed to be drawn from the Harris campaign’s talking points, such as this section:

Economically, the renewable-energy projects she supports will create new jobs in rural America. Her platform also increases tax deductions for new small businesses from $5,000 to $50,000, making it easier for them to turn a profit. Trump, a convicted felon who was also found liable of sexual abuse in a civil trial, offers a return to his dark fantasies and demagoguery …

An endorsement based on Harris’s tax proposals—which again, are policy choices—belongs in a newspaper or financial journal. It’s not a matter of science, any more than her views on abortions or guns or anything else are.

This implies that it might be okay if the magazine endorsed Harris because her election is better for science than the election of Trump. That might well be true, but we can’t be sure (after all, both candidates are making promises they can’t keep). More important, even if the endorsement were based on the proposed effect on science in the U.S., it’s still based on politics and ideology (Scientific American is hardly politically neutral!), and is outside the ambit of what the magazine should be about. Readers may disagree, of course, and feel free to do so in the comments. But I’d feel the same way not only if they endorsed Trump, but also if a journal like Nature of Evolution endorsed any presidential candidates.

Here’s Nichols’s conclusion:

I realize that my objections seem like I’m asking scientists to be morally neutral androids who have no feelings on important issues. Many decent people want to express their objections to Trump in the public square, regardless of their profession, and scientists are not required to be some cloistered monastic order. But policy choices are matters of judgment and belong in the realm of politics and democratic choice. If the point of a publication such as Scientific American is to increase respect for science and knowledge as part of creating a better society, then the magazine’s highly politicized endorsement of Harris does not serve that cause.

But have a look at Sci Am’s endorsement below (click on the headline or find it archived here):

The topics covered in the endorsement are healthcare (a debatable issues on what kind to provide), reproductive rights, gun safety, environment and climate, and technology.  Except for the undoubtable presence of anthropogenic climate change, which is a scientific reality that Trump has denied, all of these issues involve political differences.  Now I agree with Helmuth Scientific American and Harris on nearly all these issues, and, indeed, I go further than most in my permissive views on abortion (I favor unrestricted abortion up to term). But I know that many regard abortion as murder, and how up to what point in gestation we should permit abortion is simply not a scientific issue. Gun issues, too, are a debatable proposition, and, of course, if you’re going to bring up issues that bear on science, then Title IX and gender ideology, in which I think the Trump administrator has done better than Biden, should make an appearance (they don’t).

Further, the op-ed gives credit to Harris for things that the Biden administration actually did, referring to the accomplishments of the “Biden-Harris” administration, as if they were one person and as if Harris had a major role. As Harris has emphasized repeatedly, “I am not Joe Biden.”

But this is all pilpul.  The main point is that, in my view, science magazines should stay out of politics. If they want to publish articles about global warming, or the effect of gun laws on human lives, that’s fine, but let the readers absorb the scientific information and make their own judgments.  To tell them how to vote is both patronizing and a slippery slope that could lead to the politicization of all science journals and magazines. (In fact, that’s already happening; have a look at the Lancet or Nature.)

Researchers used a detailed mathematical model to demonstrate that the construction sector in the UK and Europe could almost eliminate its carbon emissions by 2060. This could be achieved through using state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies to renovate existing properties and construct new ones.

Researchers used a detailed mathematical model to demonstrate that the construction sector in the UK and Europe could almost eliminate its carbon emissions by 2060. This could be achieved through using state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies to renovate existing properties and construct new ones.

Within the cycling realm, 'to Everest' involves riding up and down the same mountain until your ascents total the elevation of Mt. Everest. A new record was set a few years ago, but a debate ensued about the strong tailwind the cyclist had on climbs. To what extent do the tailwind help a cyclist as they climb? Should limits be set on the allowed windspeed?

A research group has developed a new COVID-19 testing system using Janus particles -- microparticles with two sides possessing distinctive molecular properties. These particles are engineered to bind specifically to target antigens, such as viral proteins, creating a low-cost, accurate, and rapid means of testing for viral diseases. The system's versatility means it can potentially be used to test for other diseases and biomarkers linked to other conditions.

A single treatment session, which includes the video game Tetris, can reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This has been shown in a new study carried out with healthcare professionals working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Large language models (LLMs) have developed rapidly in recent years and are becoming an integral part of our everyday lives through applications like ChatGPT. An article explains the opportunities and risks that arise from the use of LLMs for our ability to collectively deliberate, make decisions, and solve problems.

Although most potentially habitable worlds orbit red dwarf stars, we know larger and brighter stars can harbor life. One yellow dwarf star, for example is known to have a planet teaming with life, perhaps even intelligent life. But how large and bright can a star be and still have an inhabited world? That is the question addressed in a recent article in the Astrophysical Journal.

Stable main-sequence stars such as the Sun are categorized by color or spectral type, with each type assigned a letter designation. For historical reasons the categories aren’t alphabetical. Red dwarf stars, the coolest stars with the smallest mass, are M type. Then with each brighter, bluer, and more massive category is K, G, F, A, B, and finally O. The Sun falls into the G category as a yellow star. Each spectral type is then broken into smaller sections, numbered 0 – 9. The Sun is G2 star because it is at the warmer end of G-type stars.

As you go up the scale, the potentially habitable zone shifts farther from the star but also gets larger. That makes it more likely for a planet to be in the zone. But larger stars also have shorter lives, which might not give life enough time to evolve on a world. Then there are other factors that can be harmful for life. The largest stars emit a tremendous amount of ionizing radiation, which could strip planets of their atmospheres, or sterilize the surface of a planet. Because of this, the largest stars of the B and O types aren’t likely to harbor life.

How habitable zones differ by spectral type. Credit: NASA, ESA and Z. Levy (STScI)

But what about F-type stars? They are a bit brighter than the Sun and more white than yellow in color. They are also stable for around 4 billion years, which is long enough for life to evolve and thrive. And they also emit more ultraviolet radiation, which may have helped life arise on Earth. What are the odds of a habitable F-type planet?

To answer this question, the team went through the database of known exoplanets. About 80 F-type main-sequence stars are known to have at least one planet. Of those, 18 systems have exoplanets that spend at least part of their orbit in the habitable zone of the star. And in one case, the exoplanet 38 Virginis b, the planet is always in the habitable zone. Statistically around 5% – 20% of F-type stars have potential for life.

What’s interesting about 38 Virginis b is that it is a gas giant about 4 times more massive than Jupiter, so it isn’t likely to be habitable. But it could have Earth-sized moons, similar to the Galilean moons of Jupiter. A world orbiting a Jovian planet could be a perfect home for life.

F-type stars only comprise 3% of main-sequence stars in the Milky Way, and it’s possible that their excess UV light could rule out habitable worlds. But alien astronomers might make similar arguments about G-type stars like the Sun. As this study shows, we shouldn’t rule out the Sun’s brighter cousins in the search for living worlds.

Reference: Patel, Shaan D., Manfred Cuntz, and Nevin N. Weinberg. “Statistics and Habitability of F-type Star–Planet Systems.” The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 274.1 (2024): 20.

The post Could Stars Hotter Than the Sun Still Support Life? appeared first on Universe Today.

Here’s what members of the New Scientist editorial team are keenest to catch at the world’s greatest festival of ideas and discovery, which runs from 12 to 13 October

I recently wrote a piece for Skeptic titled “Ranking Presidents: Does It Make Any Sense?”, in which I outlined three reasons why ranking Presidents against one another is a fool’s errand: presentism, the evolving role of the presidency, and sui generis.1 The current trend of the first of these criteria, presentism, becomes problematic when applied to entertainment made for previous generations. Viewing and evaluating the culture of the past through a contemporary lens has led to erasing history in at least three relatively recent incidents. This is, I believe, a slippery slope toward censorship and a missed opportunity for valuable lessons about our collective past.

In 1991, Disney released a video version of their 1940 masterpiece Fantasia, describing it as “a meticulously restored version of the original, full-length film.” It wasn’t, though. The version Disney released omitted an original scene in which a Black centaurette named Sunflower is shown shining shoes of a White centaur.2 Seen today, Sunflower is a patently offensive stereotype.3 Ten years later Disney released the censored version for the film’s 60th anniversary DVD.4 Disney’s use of racist stereotypes is not limited to Fantasia. In varying degrees, such tropes are seen in Dumbo (1941),5 Peter Pan (1953),6 The Aristocats (1970),7 and Aladdin (1992).8

In 2020, the company (admirably, in my view) took steps toward addressing this controversy by adding disclaimers to their films on their streaming services, noting the “harmful impact” of racist stereotypes. Unlike the quiet actions the company took censoring the re-releases of Fantasia, the films are viewable in their original forms.

This begs the question: If the racism was so apparent, why weren’t these films decried upon initial release? The answer is they weren’t considered offensive by the public at the time, and applying today’s attitudes toward race crystallizes the fallacy of presentism.

In 2014, Ruth Wise, professor emerita of Yiddish and Comparative Literatures at Harvard, criticized Fiddler on the Roof (1971) for sacrificing Jewish identity to make the musical more universally appealing.9 The problem with Wise’s argument is (again) presentism. In the early 1970s, M*A*S*H writers employed rape jokes,10 and America’s most popular sitcom (All in the Family) featured a working-class bigot who employed racial slurs for laughs.11 John Lennon released a song titled “Woman is The (N-word) of the World”12 and Richard Pryor would use the same racial epithet in an album title three years later.13 Our attitudes towards cultural authenticity and appropriation have evolved since the early 1970s.

In 2020, a 1988 Golden Girls episode called “Mixed Feelings” was pulled from the streaming platform Hulu due to “a scene in which Betty White and Rue McClanahan are mistaken for wearing blackface.”14 In the episode, Dorothy’s (White) son introduces his fiancé, a much older Black woman. Blanche and Rose are mortified with embarrassment when they unexpectedly meet the couple wearing cosmetic mud masks.

Were Rose and Blanche revisiting a minstrel show to characterize Black Americans as lazy, hypersexual thieves, ala “Amos ‘n Andy,” as minstrel shows were in the past?15 Of course not. The joke lay in their mutual embarrassment of appearing as if they were in blackface.16 Each Golden Girls actress (Betty White, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty) came of age decades before the women’s movement, but their show was considerably progressive for their time. In its seven-year run, The Golden Girls featured episodes centered on then-controversial topics of racism, sexual harassment, same-sex marriage, age discrimination, homelessness, the death of children, and addiction.17 Perhaps most significantly, a 1990 episode titled “72 Hours,” has Rose worried that she may have come in contact with HIV.18 It was only five years prior that President Reagan first addressed the AIDS crisis, by which time 42,600 people had died from the disease. By 1990, that number had spiked to 310,000, a third of which were deaths occurring that same year.19 When one considers the climate of the times, airing the episode was courageous.

The same year “Mixed Feelings” was removed from Hulu, an actor named François Clemmons published Officer Clemmons: A Memoir. Clemmons played “Officer Clemmons” on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood in the late 1960s, the first African American actor to have a recurring role on a children’s television program.20 In Clemmon’s mostly heartwarming book, he relates an incident in which Fred Rogers called him into his office. His boss said to him, “Someone has informed us that you were seen at the local gay bar downtown. Now, I want you to know, Franc, that if you’re gay, it doesn’t matter to me at all. Whatever you say and do is fine with me, but if you’re going to be on the show as an important member of the Neighborhood, you can’t be out as gay.”

Was Mr. Rogers homophobic? When Rogers had the conversation with Clemmons, homosexuality was still listed as a disorder in the DSM. It wasn’t until 1974 that it was replaced with “sexual orientation disturbance.”21 In reality, Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, was an LGBTQ ally. He’d intentionally hired gay men and women since the 1960s and rebuffed efforts from his viewers to renounce homosexuality.22

This article appeared in Skeptic magazine 29.2
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In John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club (1985)23 and Jeff Kanus’ Revenge of the Nerds (1984),24 there are scenes of sexual assault upon women played for laughs. Both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert (renowned film critics) praised each film, neither noting their discomfort with the now-troubling scenes in either review.25, 26, 27 Why did they fail to do so? Were both Siskel and Ebert misogynists willing to overlook scenes of women being sexually assaulted? Of course not. The social mores in the early 1980s didn’t apply to those we share today. Are these scenes excusable? No, but both actresses (Molly Ringwald and Julie Montgomery) have publicly reckoned with the blatant sexism in their roles and neither has insisted the scenes be omitted.28, 29

In 2022, the UK’s Channel 5 aired the 1961 classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but bowdlerized scenes of Mickey Rooney as “Mr. Yunioshi,” an over-the-top yellow-face Asian caricature.30 Should Rooney’s role be excised? No. Just like the racist characters in Disney movies of the 1940s–1990s, and the sexual assaults depicted for laughs in 1980s raunchy comedies, the climate in 1961 was different.

Pop culture of the past is just that: of the past. Applying today’s standards to them is at best a fool’s errand and, at worst (as seen in the cases above) a slippery slope toward censorship. Entertainment from yesteryear should be taken in context while viewed in its entirety.

About the Author

John D. Van Dyke is an academic and science educator. His personal website is vandykerevue.org.

References

1. https://bit.ly/3vjUhOj
2. https://bit.ly/48YFeYe
3. https://bit.ly/49UFKaT
4. https://bit.ly/3TFD1w8
5. https://bit.ly/3TpvgcA
6. https://bit.ly/43p6fTb
7. https://bit.ly/43ltjm0
8. https://bit.ly/3TEanM6
9. https://bit.ly/3IHU5vb
10. https://bit.ly/3IJzVRu
11. https://bit.ly/3IHU9uV
12. Miles, B. & Badman, K. (2001). The Beatles Diary After the Break-Up: 1970–2001. Music Sales Group.
13. https://bit.ly/3TgVYE6
14. https://bit.ly/3VoMmKi
15. https://bit.ly/43koCJd
16. https://bit.ly/3IHHGYf
17. https://bit.ly/43lj6G0
18. https://bit.ly/43DFElP
19. https://bit.ly/3v783Ut
20. Clemmons, F. S. (2020). Officer Clemmons: A Memoir. Catapult.
21. https://bit.ly/3vg6XWj
22. https://bit.ly/49XehW4
23. https://bit.ly/4ahrvN1
24. https://bit.ly/3VmOGBu
25. https://bit.ly/3ViAR72
26. https://bit.ly/4cdaDJ4
27. https://bit.ly/4cj1RcG
28. https://bit.ly/3VmZOOP
29. https://bit.ly/492E65L
30. https://bit.ly/4chtAu9

Doug Hayes of Richmond, Virginia, is back with his “Breakfast Crew” series of bird photos (and a new mammalian member of the Crew). His captions and narrative are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The gang is back! The past few months have been quiet at the backyard feeders as plenty of food was available in the surrounding wooded areas along the James River. We also had a pair of hawks build a nest a few yards over which kept activity to a minimum. The hawks seem to have moved on now. With the cooler weather, the Breakfast Crew has returned with the usual members, plus a new mammalian member of the crew, Pat the Bunny.

A common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) chows down at the basket filled with peanuts and sunflower seeds:

A female house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) levitates while waiting for a male to finish his meal:

Only peanuts will do for the red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus). They will dig around, tossing aside sunflower seeds and corn until they find a peanut:

We don’t get very many American goldfinches (Spinus tristis) in the yard, even though they are fairly common throughout the neighborhood. This day, four of the little guys showed up:

White-breasted nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis) are regulars in the yard. They tend to be hit and run feeders, snagging a sunflower seed and flying back into the trees to eat:

A juvenile brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater):

Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis) are among the regular visitors to the feeders:

This mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) decided to give perching on the crook a try. It stayed there for some time, despite looking uncomfortable:

We had a population explosion among the Northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) this year. There are nearly a dozen juveniles that show up most mornings, most of them seem to be females:

This male cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) was going through a molt a few weeks ago and was completely bald. Now he seems to be regrowing his head and cheek feathers:

Carolina wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) are another bird that underwent a population explosion. Dozens of these noisy, curious little birds hang out in the yard most of the day:

A tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) about to take off with its meal. Another bird that grabs a quick meal and takes it into the trees to eat.

Downy woodpeckers (Picoides pubescens) love peanuts, just like the larger, red-bellied woodpeckers. They will take suet when I put it out:

Pat the Bunny, an Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus), has been hanging out in the yard for over a month now. I think Pat lives under one of the sheds at the end of the yard. The rabbit is most active late afternoons, but I have seen it eating scattered seeds under the bird feeders in the morning:

Photo information:  Sony A7RV camera body, Sony FE 200-600 zoom lens + 1.4X teleconverter, iPhoto Cobra 2 monopod, Neewer gimbal tripod head. Auto ISO, shutter speed ranging from 1/650th to 1/2500th of a second, photos resized and tweaked with Adobe Photoshop (Beta) v25.13

Things have been extremely busy! I have

• written a new article for New Scientist about the familiar-sounding words that we use in physics (such as “particle”) and how they can easily mislead the unwary;
• appeared in an extended Know Time podcast, hosted by a non-scientist, in which we discuss fields, particles and the Higgs boson — core material of my book Waves in an Impossible Sea; and
• learned that the audiobook version of the book is now available for pre-order; it comes out September 24th. 

If any of these might interest you, here are the details!

Article on Science and Language in New Scientist

First, about the latest article I’ve written for New Scientist magazine. (My other New Scientist articles can be found at the bottom of this page.) This one is about the interplay between science and language. There are a lot of words in English that have been repurposed by physicists — force, mass, energy, field, etc. — whose meanings for physicists differ, to a greater or lesser extent, from their meanings in ordinary conversational settings.  This definitional mismatch creates all sorts of opportunities for misunderstandings.

I also dealt with this issue, to a certain extent, in my book. From my experience teaching, and also writing on this blog for many years, I have come to the conclusion that one can’t properly explain the most important results of modern physics without close attention to this linguistic challenge. 

Anyway, in this new article, the focus is mostly on three words crucial for modern physics: atom, force, and particle.  I examine how and why their meanings have shifted over time, and the legacies of these shifts for those trying to make sense of physicists’ verbal explanations of how the universe works.

This is my second article of the month; if you missed my article in Quanta Magazine about how the Higgs field truly gives mass to elementary particles, you can find it here.  My approach to this topic (also covered extensively in my book) avoids the false analogies of the Higgs field being like molasses, or soup, or anything else that violates the Principle of Relativity. It also draws attention to the connection of these ideas to those of resonance, which is fundamental to the physics of musical instruments.  

If you find these articles too brief or too oracular, the book can provide far more details without the use of math.  If you actually want some of the math (but not too much), you can find that here on this website, for example here and here. If that’s still not quite what you want, feel free to ask me for guidance, or explore this website further using the Search bar at the upper right of this page.

Know Time Podcast About the Topics of my Book

Shalaj Lawania, on his podcast Know Time, has a terrific series of interviews with a wide variety of interesting people, including but not limited to scientists.   I’m very pleased to be added to his impressive list. It’s a real shame that he has relatively few subscribers, given the high quality of what he is doing. I strongly encourage you to check out his channel.  You will not be disappointed.

As he always does, Lawania curated a well-structured interview. We methodically covered a wide range of topics from my book, as well as some more general issues about science and belief.  The full interview is two hours long!  But no worries if that’s way too much; you can listen to various self-contained excerpts that Lawania has separated out.

The AudioBook is Finally In Sight

Since many people find it convenient to listen to books rather than read their texts, it’s not surprising that I’ve often been asked about the audio version of my book, for which we’ve had to wait over six months. But the wait is over. I’m pleased to tell you that the audiobook will finally become available next Tuesday, September 24th.  (It can be pre-ordered now.) The company who recorded it wanted a professional reader with an in-house recording studio, so they did not offer me the option of reading it myself. But I am reasonably confident in the skills of the reader they selected.

I’m concerned, though, that the audiobook may be harder to follow than the written text. After all, the written text has many figures and a glossary, and it’s more amenable when one wants to review earlier material that appears again in a later section. To mitigate this, I have put the figures, the tables, the glossary, and the endnotes online on this webpage. That way, while you’re listening to the audiobook, you can have the images etc. open in your browser, so that you can access them easily when they are mentioned. 

And I do think you should expect to listen to certain sections of the book twice. The ideas of modern physics are very strange indeed. I’m sure that I myself, before I took physics classes, would have had trouble completely absorbing these concepts the first time through.

Let me know how the audiobook works for you! And if you think there’s anything I can do on this website to make the audiobook easier and more accessible, please let me know.

More to Come

More podcasts and articles are in the works. So is additional supporting material for the book. Stay tuned!

If Drs. Vinay Prasad and Tracy Hoeg want to prove they actually care about routine vaccines, they can do what the should have done a long time ago and openly and unequivocally denounce Mr. Kennedy and his fire hose of anti-vaxx disinformation.

The post A Simple Challenge For Drs. Vinay Prasad and Tracy Hoeg: Denounce Robert Kennedy Jr. For Promoting The Movie Vaxxed 3: Authorized to Kill first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

As a six-year investigation into the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica wraps up, the scientists involved are pessimistic for the future of this glacier and the consequences for sea level rise

Genetic analysis shows that microbes growing inside the International Space Station have adaptations for radiation and low gravity, and may pose a threat to astronauts