Planet Earth that fragile blue marble in space that we call home deserves better from all of us, I think we would agree.
And for good reason. With such issues as energy, pollution, conservation and sustainability, and climate becoming rising worldwide concerns, it behooves everyone to do their part to make sure she thrives and survives.
NASA astronaut Ron Garan said last year after returning from spending more than five months on the International Space Station situated 250 miles above Earth: I looked down at this indescribably beautiful fragile oasis, this island that has been given to us and has protected all life from the harshness of space, I couldn t help thinking of the inequity that exists. I couldn t help but think of the people who don t have clean water to drink, enough food to eat, of the social injustice, conflict, and poverty that exist. The stark contrast between the beauty of our planet and the unfortunate realities of life for many of its inhabitants reaffirm
This blog marks a transition for me. For more than 20 years, I have been reviewing science books written for the library and bookstore crowd. For a few of those years, I even managed a four-figure supplemental income from selling my reviews to major metropolitan newspapers. Then, one-by-one, book review pages began to disappear or cut back on freelance contributions. Still, I enjoyed the work so much that I continued doing it, even for the limited income produced by blogging, eventually producing these roundups to bring attention to titles that caught my eye.
Now the time has come to move this blog back to the reason I originally signed up on Science Blog: an opportunity to share my thoughts about science in the news, so this will be my last roundup–though I hope not in the usual sense of that term. (Thanks, Ben Sullivan, for making this possible!) Future posts will be a mix of stories that catch my attention and whatever enlightenment I have to offer. My political views are slig