Geometry was my downfall in high school.  Languages weren’t much better.  I have an aversion to memorizing material.  All those theorems and all that vocabulary made my head spin.   On the other hand,  my brief but spectacular introduction to organic chemistry was a delight. 

Clutter can be a sign of a creative mind at work.  Clive Thompson writes that a person with pack rat behavior may have an effective “organizational strategy.” Call it, “serendipity.” (“Clutter Clash,” by Clive Thompson, Wired, March 2016, pg. 49.)  When disparate

In a recent opinion piece, Clive Thompson begins with the question, “What do you do when you discover you are wrong?” (“Retraction Heroes,” by Clive Thompson, Wired, Feb, 2018, pg. 034.)  He goes on to extol the merits of an evolutionary biologist, Daniel Bolnick, who pub

Unlike a declining number of people on the planet, I can remember when my life wasn’t documented.  I can recall researching the subject of ear wax at the library without finding my mailbox stuffed the next day with discount coupons for drops or scrapers to facilitate its removal. 

Donald Trump’s truth varies minute by minute.  It’s like listening to Variations of a Theme of Paganini but less pleasant. Trump doesn’t seem to worry about these variations, which his critics call lies. Rather, he twists the truth, I suspect, to convince his subjects that one

In an earlier blog (10/27/16), I referred to an article by Clive Thompson about artificial intelligence.  He warned we know so little about what’s going on inside those wired machines, we should consider what this lack of transparency means.  Are we being foolhardy when we put too

When Prerna Gupta decided to take a year off to write fiction with her husband, the couple experimented by crafting stories for cell phone apps.  Though the pieces were short, no more than a 5 minute read, only 15% of viewers finished them. That’s when the pair decided to experimen

I had an enjoyable lunch the other day with Jane Vogel, President of Age & Gender Equity in the Arts, (AGE) an organization dedicated to challenging stereotypes about aging and gender in the arts and theater in particular.  The group awarded $30,000 this year to organizations tha

Ask a member of the Millennial generation to chose between owning a smart phone or a car and, hand’s down, the majority will choose the smart phone.  All a person can do with a car is drive, but a smart phone brings the world to your fingertips.  At least that’s the view writer

When I was 10, I found a land application for 1 square inch of the moon in my Cheerios cereal box.  The time was the 1940s, long before John F. Kennedy had a gleam in his eyes to send Neil Armstrong into the stratosphere. As I was fascinated with astronomy, I jumped  at the chance t