Rapscallions: rap-scal-lion: one who is playfully mischievous, scamp, imp, monkey, scalawag, knave, rascal, rogue, scoundrel, villain, holy terror, terror…an obsolete old-fashioned word for; well, someone who is just being an ass. When you read "Mostly Rapscallions" you will laugh like......

Loaded with cameos of people associated with the movie, all grouped around the figure of Philip K. Dick....

From NESCENT: Carl Zimmer "Darwin and Beyond: How Evolution Is Evolving" February 12, 2009 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm Talk Overview: Charles Darwin launched the modern science of evolution, but he hardly had the last word. In fact, today scientists are discovering that evolution works in ways Darwin himself ...

Hard to believe it's been 25 years since Apple's slick TV spot, which aired during the third quarter of an otherwise forgettable Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Raiders and the Washington Redskins, ushered in the era of the Macintosh. The commercial depicts a drab future for humanity (in which, f...

Science museums are among my favorite places to visit. In probably a dozen or so museums in several different countries I’ve seen an exhibit called “Foucault’s Pendulum,” in which a heavy weight, suspended from the ceiling by a wire, very slowly changes direction over the cou...

Imagine getting to sit down with Columbus and ask him what he thought and felt as he first set eyes on the New World. That's pretty much how it was for me when I interviewed Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, the crew of Apollo 8, who made the first manned voyage around the moon in December ...

The Star of Bethlehem, which Christian lore maintains led the wise men to the birthplace of Jesus, is one of the most enduring and well-known Christmas legends. Almost as enduring among sky-watchers is the question of whether an ordinary (that is, non-miraculous) astronomical event could have fit th...

Peter McGrath, Michael Barton and Mike Haubrich brought my attention to a new book by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. Their previous biography of Darwin is arguably the best (and there are hundreds of Darwin biographies out there, many more to be published next year as well). The new book, Darwin's ...

DECEMBER 10 Children inherit much more from their parents than their genes. In a most extreme example, Monika Hertwig grew up with the burden of knowing her father had been the murderous Nazi captain Amon Göth. Göth, whose brutality was chillingly portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler&rs...

More than five and a half years into the Iraq War, the condition of archaeological sites and antiquities in Iraq remains a frustrating and contentious topic among archaeologists and art historians. Two surveys in the past year--one in northern Iraq in May, the other in the south in June--have persua...