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Science Travel

An adventure at the bottom of the Earth, Part 3

To read Parts 1 and 2, click here and here. After lunch the following day, our ship arrived at Cierva Cove.  I was one of the first in line for the Zodiac ride because the cove was stunningly gorgeous.  We were surrounded by enormous icebergs that seemed like skyscrapers, compared to our little inflatable Zodiac.  The […]

Categories
Science Travel

An adventure at the bottom of the Earth, Part 2

For Part 1, click here. Excited at the end of our first day in Antarctica, we set sail through the Gerlache Strait, a channel that separates the Palmer Archipelago from the Antarctic Peninsula.  We were lucky enough to see stunning scenery in the form of dozens of enormous tabular icebergs.  Tabular icebergs are slabs of ice that once […]

Categories
Science Travel

An adventure at the bottom of the Earth, Part 1

At the start of December, I traveled to Buenos Aires to begin the first leg of a journey following Arizona State University’s Origins Project on a cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula.  I had booked the trip in order to participate in their event “Science and Adventure in Antarctica“, and ended up dragging my dad with me for […]

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Politics Science

When did “The law applies to everyone” become “persecution”?

Increasingly, when laws restrict Christians from imposing their childish beliefs upon others, or practicing their bigotry, they claim to be persecuted.  Recently this cultivated whining was in the spotlight, when Kim Davis was jailed for actually persecuting gays when she refused to sign their marriage licenses.  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee even tweeted at the time that her jailing was […]

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Politics Science

When will our politicians stop pandering to the ignorant?

The Republican Party is overtly anti-science.  The current group of candidates for President of the United States is comprised of people who reject reason and evidence in favor of detrimental myths and superstition.  Our Founding Fathers deliberately made the United States a secular nation—something that was unprecedented at the time—and yet today’s Republicans pander to the lowest common denominator of our […]

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Politics

Kim Davis’ jailing is about bigotry, not religious freedoms

Today, Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee will travel to Kentucky to support Kim Davis at an “#ImWithKim Liberty Rally”.  His support of a woman who refused to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples (due to her belief in a homophobic deity) shows that once again, Huckabee and the Christian right have gotten it all wrong.

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Science

Can we finally admit that pseudoscience is not worthy of respect?

Despite the advances that we have made in our understanding of the natural world, a shocking number of people still are fleeced by charlatans regularly.  With everything that we know, people such as Deepak Chopra and Dr. Oz continue to spout off meaningless woo—and inexplicably are not regarded as the crazy people that they truly […]

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Politics

Let’s stop pretending that Islamofascism doesn’t exist

Yesterday, yet another tragic attack left four Marines and a Navy sailor dead in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  A 24 year-old Kuwaiti named Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez fired more than a dozen rounds at a Marine Corps recruiting center, wounding a Marine.  Abdulazeez then drove seven miles to a Navy Operations Support Center, where he rammed his car through a […]

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Politics

Why doesn’t the Westboro Baptist Church picket seafood restaurants?

Unsurprisingly, the hateful Westboro Baptist Church is upset about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to be married.  The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is comprised largely of the family of its now-dead founder, Fred Phelps.  This group of people pickets controversial funerals, holding up signs that say […]

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Politics

Why do we keep ignoring the real problem?

In the wake of the Charleston, S.C. shooting, people have been quick to point the finger at many different culprits in order to try to make some sense of yet another senseless tragedy to add to the litany of senseless mass murders perpetrated against innocent civilians in the United States.  At a luncheon last Thursday, Presidential hopeful […]