By Dr. Robert Thorson The Doomsday Clock just moved from 11:53 to 11:55, two minutes closer to midnight. By this measure, the world is now closer to self- annihilation than at any time since 1984, when the Reagan administration rattled nuclear sabers with the dying Soviet Union. At the moment, planet Earth has five minutes […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Super-sized meals can lead to gas and indigestion. The same is true with our super-sized diet of fossil fuels. Waste gas (CO2) and political indigestion are the result. Deep beneath the Canadian prairie, in the little town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, a team of scientists is trying to do something about the […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson This Sunday, I’m presenting a sermon about spring. While preparing, I got stuck on one point. Why would Jesus — or anyone else for that matter — want to ascend into heaven where it is cold and empty? Why wouldn’t he (or we) prefer to descend into heaven where the snuggling […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Pretty soon you will be able to walk beyond the edge of Arizona’s Grand Canyon on a glass skywalk jutting 70 feet into thin air. The view will be spectacular. It will also be surreal, an affront to nature, rather than an enhancement. Even worse, I’m pretty sure it will be […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson There are two kinds of spam. Both are bad for the environment. My children know only the new kind: the junk e-mail soliciting their impressionable minds to buy stuff they don’t really need. My elderly parents, from “the greatest generation,” know only the old kind of Spam: the cold, stiff, pink, […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The world will definitely not come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, regardless of the Mayan Calendar. There’s no planetary Rapture in the near future, despite the wishful thinking of an apocalyptic few. For at least another billion years, Earth will spin, the sun will shine and all God’s creatures […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Global warming ruined my golf game. Golfers are legendary for making excuses, and hence are probably laughing at me now. But I swear it’s true! Global warming is not something that will happen in the future. It’s happening now. Nor is it something that will affect us principally through warmer temperatures. […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Why do we lock young minds into traditional school disciplines? Why does the teacher move from one subject to another in elementary school, and the student from one room to another in middle school? Regardless of who or what moves, it’s still a parade of subjects: history, math, reading, science and […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The top science priorities of President George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry — at least those reported in a recent issue of Science — have one thing in common. Both sidestep socially volatile issues such as cloning, abortion and climate change. Apart from that similarity, however, the candidates’ science […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson There’s a phoenix rising from the coal-tar residues, demolition debris and parking-lot asphalt on the Connecticut River floodplain at Adriaen’s Landing: It’s named the Connecticut Science Center. This name is a phoenix as well, rising from its cumbersome former name, the Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration. All by itself, the […]