Astrophysicist Ashes: Sort of a Rambling Eulogy

Today is the first anniversary of my dad’s death. Yesterday I came home from the crematorium “with me dad took’d under me arm,” to badly paraphrase the children’s song about Ann Boleyn. Death doesn’t frighten me in an abstract way. I grew up with Tom Lehrer music, Charles Addams cartoons, Hitchcock short story books, and other foils to the timid mortal. This package of charred and calcined particles I carry in the crook of my arm is merely a transient monument to the man in whom they once dwelled.

Although my father died a year ago, his ashes just now returned from the medical school circuit. He was first and foremost an educator, and this seems a fitting final use for his corporeal remains. It was also was his expressed wish.

“Ashes to ashes” is a lame phrase to someone whose head was usually far beyond the clouds. I grew up perfectly aware that my body was made up of ashes from the remains of a supernova, as is the rest of our solar system. The even my cell nuclei are literally composed of decayed nuclear waste!

Not all of the mass of these coarse ashes was actually part of his body during his life. Cremation binds oxygen to any atom that will have it, increasing the total mass from the proteins being torn apart and vaporized by the process. Sort of like how 6 lbs (a gallon) of gasoline produces 30 lbs of greenhouse C02

It doesn’t …

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Those abstinence-only programs are really bringing down the teen pregnancy rate . . . or are they?

Teen pregnancy is down. Is it because of those abstinence pledges?  As indicated in this article from the BBC News,  "88% of those who make the pledge break the pledge, so it must be down to condoms and safe sex education." The Guttmacher Institute recently released its own survey showing…

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Whatever Became of Thorium?

And why should we care about this material rarely mentioned outside of science-fiction? Well, it involves recycling, our energy future, and a chance to de-proliferate nuclear weaponry and reduce the threat of "dirty" bombs. First, a brief bit of history: Back in the 1930's, it was discovered that isotopes of…

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Why we won’t solve any other major problem confronting the U.S. without media reform.

The following remarks were delivered by Bernie Sanders to the National Conference for Media Reform. Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont.  He is an independent, but caucuses with the Democrats.  Amy Goodman describes Sanders’ speech as an “alternative State of the Union.”

The full text to Sanders’ speech can be found here.  Video of his presentation can be found here.  Here are excerpts of Sanders’ speech to the NCMR in Memphis:

[W]e will not succeed unless you are there, unless there is a strong grassroots media, which demands fundamental changes in media today and the end of corporate control over our media. We’ve got to work together on that.

Now, you are going to hear from a lot of folks who know more about the details of the media than I do, but what I do know a lot about is how media impacts the political process, what media means for those of us who day after day struggle with the major issues facing our country and a goal of trying to improve the quality of life for all of our people.

And I want to spend just a minute in telling you what I suspect most of you already know. If you are concerned, as been said, about healthcare, if you are concerned about foreign policy and Iraq, if you are concerned about the economy, if you are concerned about global warming, you are kidding yourselves if you are not concerned about corporate control over the

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How to fight off Creationist school boards and politicians

Here’s a site for scientists looking for help in presenting the need to vigorously teach evolution, when confronted by anti-science types. 

I keep falling into the trap that this should be easy to convince people to study evolution in light of the abundant evidence in support and the elegance of natural selection.  On the issue of whether the Earth is 6,000 years old, how about this:  If you believe in God, the universe would (it seems to me) to be God’s elaborate “clock.”  Dozens of physical and biological mechanisms are commensurate in suggesting that the Earth is far more than 6,000 years old.  Why deny these numerous testable clock mechanisms in order to pursue a narrow inquiry-ending view (one of many) of an ancient book of aprochraphal (un-testable) origins? 

But, alas, presenting well-established scientific facts don’t convince Creationists.   In fact, no evidence convinces them that the version of the Bible that they bought at Wal-Mart is the one true inerrant version, despite an avalanche of evidence to the contrary.  To me, it is a red flag when non-experts reject the experts when virtually all of the experts (those trained and practicing in a field) speak in unison.

Certainly, then, announcing broad-minded scientific principles is not enough to pry open most of those closed minds.  In fact, the terms “science,” “academic” and “intellectual” make many creationists bristle and turn away.  Turn on any 24-hour Christian AM radio show for confirmation.

This new site is sponsored by the Federation of …

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