Living north of the equator it’s three short months between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. Summer comes and goes quickly and when mid-September comes, we know it’s all nearing a close. The heat of summer often lingers while the light declines and the withering leaves crackle underfoot as the trees begin their seasonal … [Read more…]
Every April 25 some of us commemorate the day in 1953 when Watson, Crick, Wilkins, et al (particularly Rosalind Franklin who received little credit at the time) published their paper on the structure of DNA. Today we celebrate the scientific advances that the discovery and understanding of DNA has made possible. I met Francis Crick … [Read more…]
It’s Memorial Day in the USA, a time the country honors those fallen in wars. Here’s to the day when there are no more wars and no further need for Memorial Days. Last year and the year before I wished the same. Another Memorial Day Wish A Memorial Day Wish Carl Krusehttps://carlkruse.org Email: carl AT … [Read more…]
A MLK Tradition: Reading A Letter From A Birmingham Jail by Carl Kruse It was on a Martin Luther King Day in 2006 that I first thought of reading some of King’s original work to honor the man behind the U.S.A. holiday and remembered an essay that was in a Norton anthology back in college … [Read more…]
Help SETI Answer The Question: Are We Alone? by Carl Kruse Every year the good people at SETI @ HOME make a fundraising drive to support their efforts in tackling what is one of the great remaining questions of humanity, is there intelligent life besides us in the universe? While the answer to the question … [Read more…]
Happy Winter Solstice by Carl Kruse Since before anyone kept records people have celebrated Winter Solstice, the shortest day-longest night of the year, and that happens to be today. And every year around now I share a quick note to celebrate the solstice ( See http://carlkruse.org/2015/12/22/happy-winter-solstice/ for a similar solstician greeting.) In prehistoric times people … [Read more…]
Here’s to RESPONSIBLE CHARITY and their work in Kolkata, India by Carl Kruse I have written before about my friend Hemley Gonzalez’s organization, “Responsible Charity,” (Carl Kruse blog) and the work done helping those less fortunate in Kolkata. Unlike other aid groups, Responsible Charity is secular and humanistic, where science, reason and compassion come together … [Read more…]
Here’s To A Great Summer Solstice By Carl Kruse The ebb and flow of the seasons is one of life’s constants and today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day, shortest night of the year, marking the beginning of summer. Some say it marks mid-summer, but no matter. Water flows, flowers bloom, trees sashay, the … [Read more…]
Yet Another Memorial Day Wish By Carl Kruse It is Memorial Day once again in the U.S.A., that time the nation honors its soldiers who died in combat. As I do every Memorial Day, I take some time to reflect on war and death, wishing that in some future — which seems impossibly distant — … [Read more…]
Melting Permafrost Floods Svalbard Seed Vault By Carl Kruse On Friday, March 19, a stream of nervous reports warned that water had entered the doomsday seed repository known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Temporary panic ensued because Svalbard is humanity’s last line of defense against a major catastrophe or doomsday situation that might imperil … [Read more…]
The March for Science by Carl Kruse Some scientist friends have come out against the upcoming March For Science, saying that while good intentioned, the march runs the risk of trivializing and politicizing science, turning scientists into another group embroiled in the culture wars and further alienating science from a certain segment of the world’s … [Read more…]
Spring Is Here by Carl Kruse The seasons are always turning but there are special moments and today we pass through one of them, the vernal equinox, or the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. The center of the sun today aligns with the equator, and day and night — light and dark … [Read more…]
A Fantastic Time For Discovery, and for SETI by Carl Kruse The journal NATURE’s website reportedly crashed after it announced the NASA discovery of seven Earth-like planets orbiting a star near us, some 40 light years away in the Aquarius constellation. The star known as TRAPPIST-1 (Transiting Planets and Planetisimals Small Telescope) was observed by … [Read more…]
