Andrew Moseman
Blogger
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Will the Government's Biofuel Goals Kill Ocean Life?
There are tradeoffs inherent in any energy source, but we hear more than usual about those associated with biofuels—whether the energy at the end of the process is more than the energy inputs. However, a new study in Environmental Science & Technology tackles not the question of energy balance but rather the environmental balance of biofuels, and one thing in particular: fertilizer. Read More
September 18, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Your Science Could Soon Be Free, But Also Free of Skepticism
There's good news and bad news about the openness of scientific information this week. The good news is that you might soon have access to more of it than ever. The bad news is that you might not know what to make of it. Read More
September 16, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Live Longer And Prosper (After Life in the NFL)
If you enjoyed watching the thunderous hits and tackles of the NFL's opening weekend, remember this: playing pro football isn't exactly the route to a long, full life. Thanks to the wear and tear of bone rattling collisions, and carrying more weight that a human frame is supposed to, America's favorite weekend warriors have a life expectancy that's more than two decades shorter than the average person's. Can we make life after football better for players? Read More
September 15, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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The Potato Famine Fungus is Back, But This Time We Have Genomics
Late blight is back. The fungus, which spreads through its spores and caused the great Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s, emigrated to the United States back then and is hitting the potatoes and tomatoes of the eastern U.S. especially hard this year. This time, however, scientists are working to get a step ahead: they just finished sequencing the genome of this pesky organism. Read More
September 11, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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McCarthyism 2.0: What Pieces of Paper Have You Signed Lately?
Few of my pet peeves equal my distaste for conspiracy theories, whether it's that the moon landing was a hoax, that the Bush Administration had a hand in 9/11, or the anti-Obama "birther" nonsense. But are we really going to start McCarthyism 2.0 because Van Jones signed a 9/11 petition? Read More
September 9, 2009 | In Politics & Policy
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As we speak, NASA's Kepler Mission is trailing the Earth in an orbit around the sun, spying into deep space and trying to find new planets in the "Goldilocks Zone"—just the right distance from their stars to sustain life, theoretically. But while Kepler out in space and other instruments here on Earth try to find more and more new worlds, scientists are discovering more about what make an exoplanet a good candidate for life: size counts. Read More
September 8, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Is the Invasive Species Threat Overrated?
Every week another study comes out documenting the tragic ecological consequences of an invasive species entering a new area and dominating the unsuspecting and unprepared native species. The history books, too, are filled with stories of places like Macquarie and Rat Island where species that tagged along on human travels decimated their new surroundings. But is it possible that the threat of invasives to the world at large has been overhyped? Read More
September 4, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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More Bad News From the World of Cocaine
You many have seen the story a couple weeks ago that indicated most of us handle cocaine a lot more than we're aware—thanks to the drug trade and users using dollar bills as "paraphernalia," researchers found that up to 90 percent of American paper money shows traces of coke, especially in large cities. And then this week the AP reported that, according to Drug Enforcement Administration documents it obtained… Read More
September 2, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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Add one more thing to the growing list of leverages China could hold against the United States: metals. China controls 95 percent of the world's supply of mined rare Earth metals, those lesser-known residents of the periodic table. But while you might not be familiar with their names, these metals are critical components of some of the most advanced technology produced around the world. Read More
September 1, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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The Science of Close-Talkers Revealed
Remember the Seinfeld episode featuring the "close-talker," an overly pleasant fellow named Aaron (played by Judge Reinhold) who stands just a little too close to people when he's talking to them? If you thought someone must have had brain damage to be so nice, perhaps you weren't far off: a new studyRead More
August 31, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Deer Mice: The Key to Understanding Evolution?
Who says nothing interesting happens in this blogger's native Nebraska? One of the state's native species has helped scientists see the secrets of evolution twice in the span of a month. The furry creatures in question are deer mice, one of the most abundant species on the North American continent. Read More
August 28, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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How Scary Are Those Swine Flu Stats, Really?
The numbers that came out yesterday were downright alarming: up to 90,000 people could die from the swine flu this fall, and 1.8 million people could be hospitalized. So says a report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Read More
August 26, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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Acquittal Means Having to Say You're Sorry
Like me, you might be sick of seeing those half-hearted apologies that athletes, politicians, and other celebrities read off index cards when they've been caught publicly in a wrong. However, a new study suggests that those tactics (though trite and lame) might actually work. Read More
August 25, 2009 | In Truth & Justice
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Do Lost People Really Walk in Circles? Apparently So.
Finally, something from the movies that actually jibes with science: when people are lost and have no landmarks for direction, they walk in circles. Read More
August 21, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Have We Finally Found What Killed Mozart?
The gossip mills go crazy for a celebrity dying before their time, and that was just as true in the 18th century as it is today. But instead of Michael Jackson, they had Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and a new study claims that it might have finally found his mysterious cause of death: strep infection. Read More
August 19, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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Dear Congress: We Need Money. Love, NASA.
Hope was in the air at NASA last month, when, in addition to celebrating the 40th anniversary of landing the first man on the moon, the agency also got a new boss: former astronaut Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden. At his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee, Bolden embraced a bold plan to go beyond Earth orbit and maybe as far as Mars. But even then the cloud of reduced funding hung over NASA. Read More
August 18, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Can We See Rogue Waves Coming?
They've given rise to indie band names and tales of death at sea, but could rogue waves—seemingly random ocean events that exceed 60 feet in height—actually be predictable? Not quite, Tim Janssen says, but he might be able to tell where they are the most likely to form. Read More
August 14, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Stop Ruining the Galapagos Islands
As we've blogged before on Big Think, the state of science savvy in America is pretty sorry. Only about a third of us accept evolution through natural selection, even lower than the tally that accepts human-caused global warming as a reality. Do we all need to take a science field trip for inspiration, say to the Galapagos Islands, the legendary birthplace of Charles Darwin's singular notion? No. In fact, we're ruining the place. Read More
August 12, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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The Science of Sports Scheduling
Sports fans are no strangers to the creep of statistical analysis changing the face of professional athletics, be it through Moneyball, the explosion of people playing fantasy sports, or elsewhere. However, there's something other than compiling a winning team that's in need of a stats-based overhaul: figuring out when and where the teams play one other. Read More
August 10, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Japan's legal killings of whales and dolphins has drawn the ire of environmental groups for years. But now a new film, using some clandestine camera technology, has documented the killing in graphic detail for the world at large. Read More
August 6, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
I'm a science writer who currently covers the news for publications like Popular Mechanics, Discover and others. I have wide-ranging interests inside science, but especially love weird science, astronomy and energy. A Nebraska native, I'm now a Brooklynite after more than enough wandering around.
