Videos purporting to show the rare natural phenomenon of ball lightning are popping up on social media. Are they real or fake?
Category: Science and Nature
I survived the Bermuda Triangle
Finding the weird and wonderful in Bermuda Cross one item off my bucket list for 2022: I visited Bermuda on a family holiday. Unsurprisingly, when I visit new places, I […]
Weird news and mystery booms for the end of 2022
Here we are in a new year! Let’s hope it’s a good one. Coming soon is a new post about what I did on vacation. I was looking for interesting […]
Texarkana Fish Rain Mystery Solved
The fish that fell in a December thunderstorm likely came from the nervous stomachs of birds that ejected their recent meal, investigators conclude.
Flat-earthers as scientifical Americans: One message from ‘Behind the Curve’
Most people react to flat-earthers by labeling them as stupid or scientifically illiterate. A moderate effort to examine what they say will reveal that is not so. On the contrary, […]
Science and cryptozoology: The taboo subject of Bigfoot doesn’t add up
Episode 7 of Laura Krantz’ Wild Thing podcast on Bigfoot, science and society explores the contentious relationship between the orthodox scientific community and those scientists who choose to seriously explore […]
Why the Darwin Awards Should Die
The Darwin Awards are a commodification of callous ghoulishness that celebrates people’s death and misfortune.
Human sacrifice at CERN? It’s not a joke when bizarre claims are taken seriously
Reaction has been varied regarding a video seemingly depicting a human sacrifice on the grounds of CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, the location of the Large Hadron Collider and cutting edge […]
Animal Planet’s Monster Week tones down the hype for 2016
It’s business as usual at Animal Planet channel. It’s Monster Week. You know, it’s not that bad to air shows like The Cannibal in the Jungle for one week or on […]
Book Review: Dawkins’ Brief Candle
Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science by Richard Dawkins My rating: 4 of 5 stars I feel this book helped me understand Dawkins considerably more than I […]
100 Things Popular Science Thinks Science Got Wrong, but Didn’t Quite
I was in the grocery checkout line a few weeks ago. I sometimes scan the magazine rack impulse grabs but never buy them. This week, the crop circle cover photo […]
Cryptozoology and Myth, Part 1: The Illusion of Facticity in Unknown Animal Reports
What can we make of folklore tales that cryptozoologists use to support claims that an unknown animal has been historically reported and remains to be identified? Cryptid researchers say that […]
Sykes paper is a clarion call for higher standards for cryptozoology
The highly anticipated paper from B. Skyes regarding DNA testing of anomalous primates has been published and is, thankfully, freely accessible. In 2012, the team from University of Oxford and […]
Warnings of impending danger: Science and Social Factors
This is a paper I prepared for an ethics graduate class and have updated (7-June-2014). I present it in conjunction with a Strange Frequencies Radio podcast appearance on Sunday June […]
Science and society: The giant earthquake that launched a new era in geologic knowledge
I am a geologist by training and my main interest was natural hazards. I was not able to apply my interest to earthquakes or volcanoes as I’d hoped but I […]
Speculative paleozoology done by professionals (Book Review)
Last night, I simply could not read any technical stuff before bed so I browsed my Kindle looking for some entertaining reading. The thing is, I don’t really do much […]
Defending the faith of cryptozoology
My latest post, regarding the rational vs non-rational response to the new cryptozoology book by Loxton and Prothero, Abominable Science, went live on Huffington Post yesterday. Cryptozoology Gets Respect While […]
There is something alive down there. Troglobite!
Several years ago, I put a downhole camera into a borehole that I suspected was drilled into a network of rotten rock, riddled with widened fracture and small caves, possibly […]
Science appreciation class
Several years ago, while learning about the problem of science illiteracy, I discovered something of critical importance: You can’t get people engaged and enthusiastic or even respectful about a subject if they […]
Did zoo animals predict the Virginia earthquake? Look closer.
A day after the east coast earthquake (now forever to be remembered by me as “the best birthday present ever!”), the Smithsonian issued a press release about the behavior of […]