By David Brin Lead has long been rumored as a major culprit of individual and societal downfall – even in the collapse of the Roman Empire. Starting in the 1960s we found that remediation of houses that had lead-based paint correlated with improved IQ tests for children in poor neighborhoods. A connection with violent crime now seems to be […]
By David Brin James Lawrence Powell did the math. Out of 13,950 peer-reviewed climate articles over 11 years, a mere 24 rejected global warming: The gold standard of science is the peer-reviewed literature. If there is disagreement among scientists, based not on opinion but on hard evidence, it will be found in the peer-reviewed literature. I searched […]
By David Brin NASA is apparently thinking seriously about launching astronauts to Earth-moon L2, a spot in space beyond the moon’s far side. EML-2 is a so-called libration point where the gravitational pulls of the moon and Earth roughly balance out, allowing spacecraft to essentially park there. Astronauts would ride to EML-2 aboard NASA’s Orion capsule, which […]
By David Brin Every decade since 1900 — except one — has seen some fantastic U.S. originated technologies burst forth, creating so much new wealth and ability that American consumers could afford the prodigious trade deficits that have uplifted half of the world’s population into the middle class. Jets, rockets, computers, pharmaceuticals, satellites, telecom, lasers, […]