Category: Writing for Other Sites
-
Is there life on Maaaaaars?
Even with our best laboratory equipment, we can’t always identify life on Earth, where we know it exists. This means we can’t answer the question about life on Mars.
-
Abortion, police brutality, and the responsibility of a journalist
Why am I — science writer who mostly specializes in physics, astronomy, and a bit of math — writing an opinion piece about tear gas and abortion for Scientific American? After all, not only is this not my usual wheelhouse, I’m a cisgender man who will never be pregnant (and who never intends on getting…
-
The snake-oil salesmen of “earthquake prediction”
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Earthquake weather Earthquake predictions are going viral online — and spreading dangerous conspiracies along the way. For Inverse: In 1990, an eccentric Texan named Iben Browning appeared on the…
-
Sizing up the weirdest objects in the universe
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] How big is a neutron star? Astrophysicists are combining multiple methods to reveal the secrets of some of the weirdest objects in the universe. For Symmetry Magazine: Neutron stars…
-
Cold War treaties aren’t sufficient for the era of asteroid mining
Why did I, a physics/astronomy journalist, write about asteroids for a deep-sea mining trade magazine? Read on! Oh yes, and pledge to my book of science comics with Maki Naro, Who Owns an Asteroid? [ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the…
-
Weird discrepancy in cosmic measurements has cosmologists puzzled
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] The growing crisis in cosmology For The Week: How rapidly is the universe expanding? Since Edwin Hubble first discovered in 1929 that galaxies are getting farther apart over time,…
-
The future of transportation will (probably) not include teleportation
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Why We’ll (Probably) Never Be Able to Teleport For Curiosity: For many of us, teleportation would be the absolute best way to travel. Imagine just stepping into a transporter…
-
In awe of the size of this black hole. Absolute unit.
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] How Big (or Small) Can a Black Hole Get? For Curiosity: The biggest astronomy story of 2019 arguably was the first-ever image of a black hole, captured by a…
-
If the world stopped turning
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] What If Earth Stopped Turning? For Curiosity: Earth is spinning on its axis, completing one rotation every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.1 seconds. That spin brings us day…