Category: Comics
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Dropping science like Galileo dropped the orange
Over the past few years, the MICROSCOPE spacecraft performed precision experiments to test the difference between gravitational mass, which governs how strongly matter responds to gravity, and inertial mass, which is the measure of resistance to being pushed. Our modern theory of gravity, Einstein’s general theory of relativity, says these masses are equivalent, which is […]
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The cost of “herd immunity” for COVID-19 is too high
My latest comic with Maki Naro is up at The Nib, the award-winning nonfiction comics site! This time we tackle the question of “herd immunity” for the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been suggested by a number of politicians as a strategy for beating the disease. As Maki and I describe, without a vaccine, this is […]
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“Peanuts”, vaccination, and the limits of persuasion
In my new comic with Maki Naro, we go meta: using a comic to talk about a comic! Specifically, we comics’ed about one of the most beloved comic strips of all time, Charles M. Schulz’ “Peanuts”. While the strip mostly steered clear of the issues of the day, occasionally Schulz did include topical material. One […]
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When physicists go bad
My latest comic with Maki Naro addresses the instances where certain physicists abandon scientific ethics to promote dubious causes: eugenics, climate change denial, and so forth. Since this issue is a bit fraught, I’ve included notes and references at the end of this post. Journalism, y’know? [ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most […]
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Asteroids, Mars, and a vision for space beyond colonialism
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Who owns an asteroid? Celestial bodies like Bennu could help us tell Earth’s origin story. Or they could be strip-mined for resources Discussions around space travel are saturated in […]
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To know if there are aliens, we need to ask the right questions
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Are We Alone in the Universe? How can we know if life exists elsewhere in the cosmos? To answer that question, we have to place Earth — and Earth […]
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Elon Musk’s plan for humanity’s survival lacks vision
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Elon Musk Isn’t All He’s Cracked Up to Be Elon Musk cares about humanity’s survival, but his stated vision about how that survival should be achieved is not exactly […]
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The first known interstellar visitor to the Solar System
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Cosmic Driftwood What a floating rock can tell us about life in the rest of the universe Last October, we had the first known interstellar visitor to the Solar […]
Bowler Hat Science 