“What the f— are we doing here?” asked President Trump in the summer of 2017. Nearly a year into his first term, Trump’s national security adviser had just proposed sending an additional 3,000 to 5,000 troops to Afghanistan, prompting his boss’s frustration that his Cabinet still hadn’t gotten the message. Trump had repeatedly conveyed that he wanted to end the war in Afghanistan, not prolong it. Between… Continue reading Dealmaker, Peacemaker, President | RealClearWorld
Why Friendships Matter More Than You Think
[CLIP: Theme music] Rachel Feltman: Happy Valentine’s Day, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. For many people today is all about scrambling to get last-minute dinner reservations and spending lots of money—I mean, uh, showing your significant other how much you care about them. On supporting science journalism If you’re enjoying this… Continue reading Why Friendships Matter More Than You Think
‘Next-Level’ Chaos Traces the True Limit of Predictability
The French scholar Pierre-Simon Laplace crisply articulated his expectation that the universe was fully knowable in 1814, asserting that a sufficiently clever “demon” could predict the entire future given a complete knowledge of the present. His thought experiment marked the height of optimism about what physicists might forecast. Since then, reality has repeatedly humbled their… Continue reading ‘Next-Level’ Chaos Traces the True Limit of Predictability
Would Santa Go to Heaven? (Patrons’ Children’s Questions)
Podcast: Download MYS354: We regularly give Patrons the opportunity to ask Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli their mysterious questions and make them available exclusively to Patrons first and then later to the whole audience. This time first questions from Patrons’ children and then more from the Patrons themselves. Get all new episodes automatically and for… Continue reading Would Santa Go to Heaven? (Patrons’ Children’s Questions)
A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems
The biological world is awash in chemical signals. Ants lead their nest mates to food with winding trails of pheromones, plants exude aerosols to warn their neighbors of herbivores, and everything you experience as “smell” is a molecule latching onto your nose. Some molecular messages find their targets; most linger unread in the environment. But… Continue reading A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems
Civics Needs Pluralism | RealClearEducation
America is a beautiful – and decidedly pluralistic – country. Our education system contains 12,546 locally controlled school districts. Charter schools have gained hundreds of thousands of students in recent years. Private school enrollments are up, and the classical school movement has exploded. Whether one favors traditional public schools or not, those of us… Continue reading Civics Needs Pluralism | RealClearEducation
JWST Spies a Giant Space Hamburger—and Maybe Planetary Origins, Too
I remember once going to a restaurant and, being pretty hungry, ordering the biggest burger on their menu. I grossly overestimated my appetite; what arrived at my table was a ridiculously huge slab of meat, almost impossible for me to finish. Still, it was a lot smaller than HH 30, a cosmic “hamburger” billions of… Continue reading JWST Spies a Giant Space Hamburger—and Maybe Planetary Origins, Too
The COVID-Era Smearing – and Resurrection – of Trump NIH Appointee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
Above, “fringe epidemiologists” behind the Great Barrington Declaration: Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya. The latter is now poised to run the National Institutes of Health, which sought to stifle him during the COVID pandemic. By Paul D. Thacker, RealClearInvestigationsMarch 4, 2025 Jay Bhattacharya was in pretty terrible shape five years ago. He was… Continue reading The COVID-Era Smearing – and Resurrection – of Trump NIH Appointee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI
Physics dazzled Miles Cranmer from an early age. His grandfather, a physics professor at the University of Toronto, gave him books on the subject, and his parents took him to open houses at universities near their home in southern Ontario, Canada. The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics was a favorite. “I remember someone talking about… Continue reading The Physicist Working to Build Science-Literate AI
DOGE’s Key Revelation: A Federal Budget Made Into a Maze Impervious to Reform
As Elon Musk and his tech team urge their fellow Americans to become “domestic auditors” to help rein in federal spending, people have been encouraged to use the Treasury Department’s usaspending.gov website to identify and track government finance. Your go-to source? Guess again, say experts. usaspending.gov But usaspending.gov is wrong on the biggest picture, RealClearInvestigations found. The total… Continue reading DOGE’s Key Revelation: A Federal Budget Made Into a Maze Impervious to Reform