Dennis Brutus, who was jailed in the 1960s with Nelson Mandela, instrumental in South Africa’s suspension from the Olympics, and called Africa’s most important poet, died yesterday at the age of 85.  He was a Professor of Poetry and Black Studies at Pitt and Northwestern for some years, before returning to South Africa after Apartheid [...]

Scientists, liberals, libertarians, conservatives, housewives, extraterrestrial migrant workers, Mole People  – just about anyone who has two neurons to rub together should be up in arms over the hyper-ridiculous Creation Museum, located in suburban Cincinnati (cringe).  In case you haven’t heard about this place, it is a $27 million facility headed up by hairy creationist [...]

This interesting article by futurebird entitled “Who Builds a School Without Windows” is an interesting story of what happens when architecture interacts – well, you might say in this case, battles -  the social conditions of the world around it.  The author kept passing this building during his commute, and was very surprised to find [...]

Update:  At the end of this article, giving McCain one last shred of the benefit of the doubt, I suggest that perhaps he doesn’t know what a planetarium is, maybe confusing it with some kind of fancy nickelodeon device or 1893 World’s Fair attraction.  All of this despite McCain having trained in a planetarium at [...]

Will the first element on the Periodic Chart of the Funding Elements be Obamantium or McCainistrite? Which Presidential candidate will best foster America’s role as a world scientific leader?  Even though the U.S. spends about $126.5 billion a year on scientific research and development, it’s a tiny fraction of its annual budget of $2.9 trillion.  [...]