Stanislaw Lem, the great Polish writer, has died at age 84. Lem died in Krakow, Wojciech Zemek told The Associated Press. Zemek did not give other details or the cause of death, citing only Lem’s advanced age. Lem was one of the most popular science fiction authors of recent decades to write in a language… Continue reading

If you’re looking for beach reading listening, Podiobooks has just started serializing my novel Doctor Janeway’s Plague. Podiobooks is run by Evo Terra, the industrious podcasting guru behind several podcast sites as well as the co-author of Podcasting for Dummies. I plan to add episodes once a week or bi-weekly. (Doctor Janeway is sort of… Continue reading

An Army of…Venus explorers! Glenn Reynold’s chapter on space exploration (“Space: It’s Not Just for Governments Anymore”) in his excellent An Army of Davids made me remember what it was like in 1969, to sit in my parents bedroom and watch that steaming Apollo rocket on the launching pad over Cronkite’s shoulder and the delightful… Continue reading

Is Science Unnatural?I’ve just been reading Robert McCauley’s provocative essay The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of Science, a piece to be included in the forthcoming book Explanation and Cognition from MIT Press. (PDF file is here.) McCauley writes: “…neither the contents of scientific theories that dispute received views nor the forms of thought… Continue reading

There’s a Zoo in My Back Yard I realize some people think Newton, Massachusetts is in the boonies…but in fact I live less than a mile from Boston College, the Massachusetts Turnpike and about two miles from Coolidge Corner. But lately, a lot of critters have been finding the nice big square of grass out… Continue reading