Andrew Moseman
Blogger
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.
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
Finally, something from the movies that actually jibes with science: when people are lost and have no landmarks for direction, they walk in circles. There’s only one sound scientific way […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
Some people are highly motivated to come to work and believe what they do matters; some people don’t think they’re work is important and show up for the paycheck. Both […]
How happy are you, on a scale of 1 to 10? If you don’t know how to answer that, you’re not alone. Surveying people about their happiness is notoriously problematic, […]
The source of the controversy in the psychology community this week is the Rorschach Test. You may not recognize that name, but you’ve seen parts of the test before: they’re those […]
Would today’s Major League Baseball bar Lou Gehrig? That’s the argument some are using to oppose a new announcement by the MLB: the league is conducting genetic testing on some […]
The continued downward trend of total sea ice in the Arctic is one of the most obvious bellwethers of climate change, and now it is allowing an even more striking […]
You may have missed it between the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing and the glowing tributes to the man who broadcast it to much of America, the […]
Often when we hear people arguing about the point of sex, it is defenders of sex education who fight moralist crusaders that want to save it for marriage and procreation. […]
As many of last week’s events made clear, the future of nuclearism will depend, in many ways, on just how the international community is able to forge a balance between […]
The Pew Research Center has just released its new polling data on the state of science, and attitudes toward science in America are just as disheartening as you might imagine. […]
The real Tony La Russa had no legal case against the fake Tony La Russa, at least not on Twitter. The manager of the St. Louis Cardinals filed his suit […]