By Dr. Robert Thorson For the first time since 1983, the United States made a clean sweep of the science Nobel Prizes. Americans in general and scientists in particular are celebrating winning achievements regarding the cosmic structure of the universe, the structure of proteins, and the deactivation of genes. Whoa! Not so fast. Time for […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson As Hurricane Sandy bore down on the East Coast in late October, we in southern New England had a week’s worth of warning, including three days of increasingly accurate forecasts by the U.S. Weather Service. Now, imagine stripping away all that advance notice. Instead, it was Monday afternoon, Oct. 22, and […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Wild horses: Let’s kill ’em. That’s my opinion, based on a recent spate of articles and blog postings about the excess population of so-called wild horses on our federally owned Home on the Range. The Bureau of Land Management, which has the responsibility for managing these “feral equids” on publicly owned […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Forty years ago, on April 30, 1977, thousands of protesters converged on Seabrook, N.H., to protest nuclear power generation in the United States. My sympathies were with them. Their signs read “Split Wood Not Atoms,” and “Go Fishing, Not Fission.” Led by the Clamshell Alliance, they created a national backlash against […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Take a good look at your Christmas tree (if you have one). If it’s real and if a child can see it, smell it and touch it, then you are helping to fight against a serious emerging problem in America: Nature Deficit Disorder. That catchy phrase comes from the subtitle of […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Being drowned out by the din of politics and economics is a celebration by scientists around the world. This academic year spans Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of his most famous work “The Origin of Species.” Hence, the University of Connecticut is sponsoring a yearlong series of eight talks […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Consider the sampling of biodiversity at a Thanksgiving feast. The humans, the turkey, the potatoes, the cranberries and the pumpkin. All came from a physical cradle of life, the Earth. This year, the changing Earth is getting serious respect for being the prime mover of organic evolution. For this I am […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Sometimes I just shake my head when politicians just don’t get it. Things like U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s recent denial that carbon emissions have a significant role in climate warming, and Donald Trump’s recent decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. As a proud American, I’m doubly ashamed […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus is alleged to have played his fiddle while Rome burned to the ground. Nero did watch Rome burn on the hot night of July 18, 64 B.C. But he didn’t fiddle – – at least not with a violin — because the instrument had yet […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Over the past two weeks, the Red Sox have proved something that geologists have known for some time: New England is one large state. Boston is its capital. During this sports-besotted autumn spectacular, I discovered a one-to-one correlation between the geography of Red Sox Nation and the geology of New England. […]