science

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Defeated vice president Mike Pence got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Friday. Here is why he is a hypocrite. Pence served for four years in the Trump administration, which initiated a visa ban against Muslims. Although he had in 2015 called any such ban “unconstitutional,” he folded when Trump insisted on […]

Christians

How did Washington State get sensible Sex Education Passed? The Religious Right is Collapsing

James A. Haught

Here’s a dramatic example of the growing power of Americans who say their religion is “none”: Last spring, progressives in the Washington state legislature, backed by Planned Parenthood, mandated that all public schools must teach sensible, practical sex education. The goal: to prevent teen pregnancy, reduce sexual disease, save girls from “date rape,” caution grade-schoolers […]

astronomy and outer space

How Climate Change made Venus Uninhabitable

The Conversation

By Richard Ernst | – We can learn a lot about climate change from Venus, our sister planet. Venus currently has a surface temperature of 450℃ (the temperature of an oven’s self-cleaning cycle) and an atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide (96 per cent) with a density 90 times that of Earth’s. Venus is a very […]

Artificial Intelligence

By 2030, Today’s World will be Made Over

Richard Penaskovic

This article reviews Mauro F. Guillén’s recent book, 2030: How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide And Reshape The Future of Everything, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020). $28.99. Guillén is the Zandman Professor in International Management at the Wharton School of Penn and an expert on global market trends. This book has eight chapters, a […]

Evolution

White supremacists believe in genetic ‘purity’. Science shows no such thing exists

The Conversation

By Dennis McNevin | – Far-right white supremacist ideology is on the rise in Europe, North America and Australia. It appeals to a racist notion whereby many white supremacists see themselves as members of a “pure” race that is at risk of dilution and contamination. Science does not support the idea of pure races with […]

Africa

Chadwick Boseman’s Wakanda: Afro-Futurism is in the Present

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Chadwick Boseman’s tragic death at the all too young age of 43 from colorectal cancer has been weighing on me the past couple of days. I am a fan. But I also am battling cancer, and I think I understand his incredible productivity in his last years, as he knew […]

Artificial Intelligence

Do Robot Generals dream of Deceased Humans?

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – With Covid-19 incapacitating startling numbers of U.S. service members and modern weapons proving increasingly lethal, the American military is relying ever more frequently on intelligent robots to conduct hazardous combat operations. Such devices, known in the military as “autonomous weapons systems,” include robotic sentries, battlefield-surveillance drones, and autonomous submarines. So far, […]

Donald Trump

American ISIS? Trumpies Threaten life of Scientists like Dr. Fauci, just as ISIS Killed Archeologist Dr. Al-Asaad

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump prides himself for being in office when the US military and its Muslim allies in Iraq and Syria polished off the phony “caliphate” of ISIS or ISIL. When the US military tracked down the ersatz “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and he detonated his suicide vest, Trump crowed, “Terrorists who […]

Archaeology

Elon Musk may have been Joking, but the Flaky Theory that Aliens built the Pyramids is Faintly Racist

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Egyptian scientists and archeologists replied in a level-headed but firm way to billionaire Elon Musk’s tweet that aliens built the pyramids. It isn’t clear whether Musk was just joking around, though he sometimes talks about the possibility that advanced aliens are watching us, and thinks it statistically possible that alien […]