Looking to 1968, perhaps one of the worst years in our history, to find inspiration for our troubled times. Posted on the Medium website and on the Albany, N.Y. Times-Union Op Ed page as a guest commentary.
This week I published my first novel, and second book. Now available as an ebook and paperback on Amazon, the story involves two of the 20th century’s most important events: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and NASA’s successful manned Moon-landing program. “The Answer From Surveyor 3” is a tense, suspenseful mystery surrounding the real story of those two events. The tale starts by asking the question: What if someone were accidentally present when Oswald fired those fatal shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas?…
This is a good week for space exploration buffs like me. There’s a literal traffic jam in orbit and on the surface of planet Mars as three new arrivals complete their 300-million-mile sojourns from Earth at the same time, celestially speaking. Two of the new arrivals will remain in orbit, bringing to 14 the total number of unmanned spacecraft circling the planet. Six are active and collecting scientific data. The other eight, sent beginning in 1971, quietly circle, their sources of power or ability to operate long since expired. The third new…
In the city that helped launched the great democracy experiment known as America, scientists from around the world gathered last month to discuss and share their latest research — and to draw battle lines against the ideological, anti-science platform of the new administration in Washington.
“Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” For over a century, this comment has served as the standard retort when a friend or colleague laments hot and humid weather or complains about a massive snow storm. But when University at Albany Interim President James R. Stellar uses it to talk about work at UAlbany’s Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Studies (DAES), he’s not grumbling. He uses it as a setup line before he talks about what he, his colleagues, and many others in academia are actually doing about the weather as…