The first four episodes of the new Cosmos reboot have now aired,1 including a few somewhat problematic animations involving Giordano Bruno, Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, and William Herschel.  I won’t try to summarize here the many responses that these portrayals have prompted, although many of them make for fine reading.  Instead, I want to talk […]

About a month ago, I met Joe Palca, NPR science correspondent extraordinaire.  He has a series of very short science segments that fill little gaps between other stories, and since these segments fill holes, he decided to make them about holes as well.  There was one on what would happen if you could throw a […]

As a planetary scientist, I go to scientific conferences on a regular basis, and one of those conferences is the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).  When I’m there, I’m usually stressing out about lots of things:  my presentation, navigating the ridiculous number of sessions running in parallel, meeting up with everyone I […]