Dennis Overbye on Einstein:
Dr. Hossenfelder argues that physicists have gone off course by exalting mathematical elegance. "They believed that Mother Nature was elegant, simple and kind about providing clues," she wrote. "They thought they could hear her whispering when they were talking to themselves."
Not just physicists. Here's a blog post I saw recently that takes econometrics into dragon country. There have been crackpot time-based notions of macro-economics for some decades. One is the Kondratiev waves. Another is the Elliot Wave, favored by the Gordon Gekko club. Those interested in how economic growth happens, and doesn't, read Solow for the mathy/technical analysis or Gordon with an historical argument.
Nicholas Bakalar on living forever:
Dr. Nir Barzilai, a professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, is planning a study of metformin, a drug that has been used for 60 years to treat diabetes and has been shown to be effective against several age-related diseases.
According to the Wiki, metformin was first isolated in 1922; wouldn't it be a kick in the pants of big PhARMA if a 2 cent pill keeps us upright forever?
Kenneth Chang on warp drive:
The key is that relativity does not impose a speed limit on the expansion of space. "Space can expand at any speed it wants," Dr. Alcubierre said.
...
Negative energy has the effect of antigravity, pushing space apart, which you would need for the aspect of the warp drive that expands space.
Well, The Manchurian President presents with an infinite amount of negative energy. Ship him off to Alpha Centauri.
Gina Kolata on the fattening of the American Herd:
In 1976, 15 percent of American adults were obese. Now the it's nearly 40 percent. No one really knows why bodies have changed so much.
Umm... too many RC and a Moon Pie for breakfast, lunch, and suppa?? Me thinks?
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