Category: Fred Bortz
When Pittsburgh Voyager began its unique river-based educational programs, I was in academe and was asked to join its Board of Directors.
When I left my "day job" in 1996 to write full-time, it was time for someone else to take my spot on the Board.
But I still have a soft spot for the organization, which now has a new name that captures its spirit of experiential learning.
The latest Science Shelf Newsletter is now online. It includes plenty of interesting titles, plus one I review negatively.
I've updated my Science Shelf book review archive with two interesting titles, Pluto Confidential and Rising Plague.
Another blogger here has posted regularly with claims of theories that supersede both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. I have been his primary challenger, though others have chimed in. Ultimately, I have concluded that his papers are either erroneous or not novel. But at least he has offered a claim that can be tested by observation. Now the possibility of such a test appears to be closer at hand.
With so many people misrepresenting what physicists say here on Science Blog and elsewhere on the net, I decided to reproduce a news release I got from the Center for the History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics. Its title: "Online Archive of Legendary Physicists in Their Own Words."
Shorter versions of this review have appeared in several major metropolitan newspapers. This is the review that appears on my Science Shelf on-line book review archive.
I just e-mailed the "Bookonomic Stimulus Edition" of the Science Shelf Newsletter to subscribers.
It includes pointers to numerous new titles, including the one reviewed below. You might call that book "Goodbye Gaia; Hello Monster-Mom," but author Peter Ward prefers The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?
I don't know the statistics for events like this, but I'd like to. In any case, two Tunguska-sized objects zipping by at less than one-fourth the distance to the Moon only 16 days apart has got to be uncommon.
Are you looking for a different kind of visiting author for your school but have a limited budget? Do you live along the route from Pittsburgh PA to Rochester NY?
If so, have I got a deal for you!
My book reviewing work sometimes brings me interesting e-mails. For instance, today I got one from a book publicist with the question “Which bird is named after soiled underwear?”
THE SCIENCE SHELF NEWSLETTER
News about the Science Shelf archive of book reviews, columns, and comments by Fred Bortz
Issue #29, Back from Hiatus edition, February 2009
