Amino Acids and Us
Like many 60-somethings, I remember being informed in grade school of the imminent solution to the mystery of life. Triumphantly, teachers described an experiment conducted by two researchers, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey, in...
Category: Science
A Column from 2010: Great Expectations
Thoughts of consequence can sometimes arise from the most mundane experiences, even a headache.Opening the medicine cabinet one day, I was struck by a sticker on a prescription container. “Not for use by pregnant...
Don’t Let The Measles Epidemic Fuel a Jew-Hating One
An article of mine in the Forward about the role of Orthodox anti-vaxxers inthe measles epidemic can be read here
Agudath Israel Statement about Nonsense and Insults at Monsey Gathering
Countless rabbinical figures and leaders, including leading rabbis in the Agudath Israel movement and doctors serving these communities, have repeatedly encouraged vaccination in the strongest possible terms. A recent gathering in Monsey, New York,...
Genetics and Mimetics
When my family lived in Providence, Rhode Island back in the 1980’s and early ‘90s, I heard rumors that some of the city’s residents of Cape Verdean ancestry had a strange custom. Friday afternoons,...
Gezunt or Glucophobia?
Have you been following the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s advice to drink three cups of milk a day, to get enough calcium and vitamin D? No? Good for you. Multiple studies show that there...
Science and Scientism
A high school science teacher in Wellston, Ohio was the focus of a front page New York Times story last week. James Sutter was subtly lionized by the report’s writer, who sympathized with the...
The Pathetic Ms. Power
Ms. Power is the public face of a U.S. administration that might as well have been using her own work as handbook for justifying inaction.
Under the Weather
With hurricane season upon us, we might learn something from the models that meteorologists offer when a large sea-storm heads for land. Something about Shemini Atzeres. The maps created as a storm approaches often...
Subway Poles/Snakes on Poles
Subway riders in standing room-only cars try not to think too much about what organisms might be happily residing on the poles they grasp during the lurching trip. To obtain some hard data, Harvard...
Recent Comments