Margaret Trudeau, mother of Justin Trudeau, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, and wife to Pierre Trudeau, 15th Prime Minister of Canada, visited Cuba in 1971. Justin Trudeau was born in December, 1971. Raul

Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot of Germany just captured the gold medal at the PyeongChang Winter 2018 Olympics. Watching their free skate performance made me think: art personified. The music they skated

South Korea Asks UN for Permission to Let North Korean Official Attend Olympics I sometimes sit and ponder how North Korea will lift itself from its morass. Lately, it seems that South Korea is interested

Suicidal Species Are (nonhuman) species suicidal by nature? That is, will they consume prey until there is no prey left, thereby unintentionally committing suicide? An experiment from the 1930s by Gause

The Sierra Club just sent a sticker in the mail: Make America Green Again. I'm going to use this sticker, and enjoy using it, even though it is anathema to their mission. Specifically, they are

What do the primacy of the individual and a recognition of the unknowable have to do with ecology? Let us rewind time back to 1798 and a chap called Malthus, who proposed a theory of population growth:

Is nature intrinsically harmonious or inharmonious? Mainstream ecologists would probably reply, "Harmonious, of course. Everything is interconnected in a beautiful web of smoothly running

Nassim Taleb is full of one-liners good for maxims, mottoes, and mantras. Just read his book "The Bed of Procrustes." This particular advice, however, comes from his book "The Black Swan."

My Mom is an excellent photographer. She shot this pine cone during Golden Light, an hour after sunrise or sunset. I was lucky enough to be raised by two generations of photographers, my Mom and Grandfather,

At the beginning of this year, I had about enough cryptocurrency here on steemit to buy one Bitcoin. But I didn't, because I'm not a very decisive person. Now, I'm kicking myself. So, I hope Bitcoin keeps

Every time I read one of Bill Gates' injunctions against AI, or Elon Musk's warnings against it, I don't feel afraid. After all, as one of my hyper-intelligent friends says, there will always be a physical

Traditionalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism: which will win out in the end? "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." - Louis Brandeis. It will cleanse all bad ideas from our society. Image from

Yes, we can. Specifically: Nature is more powerful than we are We need more prescribed burns We need to change our attitudes to wildfire control Breathtaking but deadly. Image from The Washington Post.

MULTIPLICATIVE DIFFICULTY HYPOTHESIS How can we predict things? What does trying to predict the 25th impact of a billiard ball tell us about the nature of the universe and the limits of our predictive

Earn SBD! Have fun! Be creative! I'm reopening my Meme Contest, since I didn't get any entrants last time. Same rules as before, except the deadline is Friday, December 8 at 12 pm CST. Here's the orgininal

HYPOTHESIS Why do we predict the future? Why do we anticipate? What is the evolutionary foundation for this mechanism? According to Daniel Dennett, it is because it is beneficial to play out alternative

THE HYPOTHESIS I went to givewell.org to search for Property and Environment Research Council, a company I want to work for. Their search engine is down, but I noticed a tab labeled “Our Mistakes.” Intrigued,

Have you ever gotten something in your mind and started seeing it everywhere? Probably, because this is a version of synchronicity, or perhaps confirmation bias. Well, what I'm seeing is horse feathers,

What do Dusky Gopher Frogs and property rights have in common? I wish I could think of a punchline, but neither the environment nor property rights are a joke. A Dusky Gopher Frog. Image taken from Wikipedia.

I am quite the herpetology (amphibians and reptiles) freak, and I enjoy spreading my passion to others. This summer, I worked with 2 species of birds, which although are technically herps, do not usually