Tag Archives: Science

Politics play a critical role in how medical patients are treated. Cultural norms and the politics that implement those norms determine even what is considered a treatable medical condition in the first place. Nowhere has the politics of medicine been more evident over the last century than in the treatment …

One of the single most important individuals in the establishment of Blogcritics.org, John Scalzi, has some very exciting news: Today is the official release date for The Rough Guide to the Universe. That’s in the US, mind you; in the UK, it’s already been out for a month, and I’m …

Like music and dancing, virtually every human culture has created images of dragons, even the Inuits who live where there aren’t even any reptiles. Why is this so? The NY Times has an interesting look into this phenomenon: A huge scaly serpent, usually with the wings of a bat or …

A couple of weeks ago in celebration of Columbus Day, we discussed a series of books containing a quite unfavorable picture of the explorer, much of it written in his own words. Columbus clearly was, shall we say, insensitive to the well-being of the natives he found in the New …

First off, don’t be fooled by the title: A Plague of Frogs: The Horrifying True Story would be more aptly, but less apocalyptically, entitled A Plague on Frogs: The Disconcerting True Story. I eagerly dove into William Souder’s real-life scientific adventure/mystery with neo-Biblical visions of amphibians raining upon good Lutherans …