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Earth Seizes the Spotlight Saturday Night
Tweet Share on Facebook March 28, 2008 Comment (3)I'm eagerly awaiting the 8 o'clock hour of this Saturday evening, which has been dubbed Earth Hour, as I recently reported. The dimming of lights for one hour in more than two dozen cities around the world is an elegant protest against wasted energy and light.
I welcome after-the-fact reports and comments from readers in all participating cities. What was your Earth Hour like?
For more on light pollution, check out the Thinking Harder homepage on the topic.
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What Viagra's Birthday Means to Men's Health
Tweet Share on Facebook March 27, 2008 Comment (116)I had the dubious distinction last year of being mocked (in absentia) on national TV by Jay Leno, who for some unimaginable reason found it amusing that a guy named Harder had written a news story about flaccidity.
Headline jokes aside, erectile dysfunction is a serious matter, and not just because it can threaten the health of a marriage. More than just a sexual problem, ED is often a sign that a man's life is at risk. That was the point of my report last year, and the evidence behind it has only grown stronger. On this day, the tenth anniversary of Viagra's regulatory approval by the Food and Drug Administration, I decided to look anew at that evidence. (If you're more interested in the drug itself than in the condition it treats, check out these five things about the blue pill that you might not know.)
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Endangered: Should More Species Get the Label?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 25, 2008 Comment (1)The Washington Post's front page on Sunday carried a story on the sluggish expansion of the list of endangered or threatened species since President Bush took office. Under the current administration, the list has grown by 59 species, in every case following a request by environmental activists rather than being initiated by government officials. In the past two years, not a single species has been added.
By comparison, 231 species gained such protections under the first President Bush, who served a single term. And in 52 of those cases, according to the Post, it was administration officials, not just activists, who requested the status change. The difference between father and son is far more striking than the disparity between Bush the elder and President Clinton, whose administration extended protection to 521 species over two terms of office.
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Close Encounters of an Unfamiliar Kind
Tweet Share on Facebook March 18, 2008 Comment (14)Reading Gene Weingarten's column in the Washington Post Magazine Sunday, I saw myself in the proverbial mirror—and I almost didn't recognize the face staring back.
In "Losing Face," Weingarten shares his self-diagnosis of mild prosopagnosia: "I have trouble recognizing and remembering faces," he writes. I long ago came to the conclusion that I, too, have this condition. I've never asked a doctor about it, but many a friend has been dumbfounded by my inability to recognize a given actor from one movie to the next. And more than a few acquaintances have been perplexed or offended when I've failed to recall their name on a second—or third, or fourth—meeting.
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Light Pollution: Burning Earth at Both Ends
Tweet Share on Facebook March 14, 2008 Comment (38)Welcome to U.S. News & World Report's homepage on light pollution and its effects. As you may have read in our magazine story, "Turning Out the Lights," the night is not the same as it once was. For a dramatic illustration of artificial light, check out our new "Light Pollution" photo gallery.
As a society, we are addicted to artificial light. We illuminate our homes and offices, our roads and car dealerships, our Christmas trees and cell towers, and even the architectural flourishes on buildings and bridges. Artificial light is essential to modern urban life and, as of this year, half the world's population is urban. Yet scientists and medical experts are beginning to recognize darker aspects of lighting the night, including harm to wildlife and human health—not to mention wasteful energy use.
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My Dinner With Geniuses
Tweet Share on Facebook March 12, 2008 Comment (102)Last night, I had the pleasure of attending the annual Intel Science Talent Search awards dinner here in Washington, D.C. It's an event I've gone to several times before, since I used to work for Science News, the magazine published by the society that runs the Intel STS competition.
For those of you who don't know, the Intel STS—formerly known as the Westinghouse competition, after its previous sponsor—is probably the nation's preeminent event for fledgling scientists. The competitors are all U.S. high school students, yet the science projects they produce bear as little resemblance to the archetypical papier-mâché volcano as we humans do to our bacterial forebears. (About 1,300 students have entered the competition annually in recent years. By last night, the field had been winnowed down to 40 finalists.)
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Ethnic Cleansing and Human Evolution
Tweet Share on Facebook March 7, 2008 Comment (13)Please pardon my recent radio silence. I evidently haven't mastered the art of simultaneously blogging and reporting for print, and I've been occupied with the latter this week. That's why this blog hasn't been updated since I blogged, well, about breaking my radio silence. Since then, I've been hard at work on a story about light pollution, which I hope will be ready to showcase in this space within a few days. In the meantime, let's talk about ethnic conflict and human evolution. (Disclaimer: What follows is more scientific hypothesis than journalistic fact. I welcome any data that confirm or refute what I'm about to suggest.)
It's not often that calls for ethnic cleansing relate in any way to human evolution. But I think I found one in a discouraging but beautifully written article about the historical roots of Kenya's current problems. The article shows how long-simmering conflicts over land ownership underpin much of the post-election violence currently seething across Kenya.
