I post essays and poetry on my blog on this site. Some of my older work is available on archives of my web sites: The Thinking Meat Project, where I wrote about human behavior, brain science, human evolution, and related topics, and The Science Word Geek, where I wrote about the origins of scientific terms. You can learn more about my Thinking Meat work by taking a look at my book and movie reviews and Best of Thinking Meat page.
My other work is listed below.
Stargazing In A Cloudy Climate, 3 Quarks Daily, March 11, 2024
Love Letters To Stones, 3 Quarks Daily, January 15, 2024
Life In Lists, 3 Quarks Daily, November 20, 2023
Of Time And Euchre, 3 Quarks Daily, September 25, 2023
Setting Our Social Clocks Back To Sun Time, 3 Quarks Daily, July 31, 2023
On Outgrowing Books, 3 Quarks Daily, June 5, 2023
“Spring in Dunn Woods” (poem), Ryder, April/May 2023 issue
Climate Change Where I Live, 3 Quarks Daily, April 10, 2023
Allowing For Uncertainty, 3 Quarks Daily, February 13, 2023
Yuletide Carols, 3 Quarks Daily, December 19, 2022
Trees, Climate, and History: A Review of Tree Story, November 12, 2022 (guest post at The Renaissance Garden Guy)
Imagining A Better Life, 3 Quarks Daily, October 24, 2022
The Daily Sky, 3 Quarks Daily, August 29, 2022
Love Letters To Trees, 3 Quarks Daily, July 4, 2022
Bird Twitter, Poetry Twitter, My Twitter, 3 Quarks Daily, May 9, 2022
Life Is Not For Managing, 3 Quarks Daily, March 14, 2022
Seamless Time, 3 Quarks Daily, January 17, 2022
Books For All Occasions, 3 Quarks Daily, November 22, 2021
43 Reasons To Go For A Walk, 3 Quarks Daily, September 27, 2021
Mystical Rose, 3 Quarks Daily, August 2, 2021
Humans On The Moon, 3 Quarks Daily, June 7, 2021
Narcissi, 3 Quarks Daily, April 12, 2021
The Chanting Goshawks And The Rainbow-Bearded Thornbill, 3 Quarks Daily, February 15, 2021
Built By Books, 3 Quarks Daily, December 21, 2020
Time Stays, We Go, 3 Quarks Daily, October 26, 2020
Star Stuff, 3 Quarks Daily, August 31, 2020
On Being Depressed, 3 Quarks Daily, July 6, 2020
Time, Stand Still, 3 Quarks Daily, May 11, 2020
You Are Here, 3 Quarks Daily, January 20, 2020
Reading Myself, 3 Quarks Daily, December 23, 2019
Cathedrals, Trees, and Humans, 3 Quarks Daily, October 28, 2019
Wildlife: Not (Too Much) in My Backyard, 3 Quarks Daily, September 2, 2019
Apollo 11 Then and Now, 3 Quarks Daily, August 5, 2019
Of Whistling Ducks and Spider Monkeys, 3 Quarks Daily, July 8, 2019
Clear and Simple Prose, 3 Quarks Daily, June 10, 2019
Connections, 3 Quarks Daily, May 13, 2019
Blossom by Blossom the Spring Begins, 3 Quarks Daily, April 15, 2019
Loosen Your Hands and Let Go, 3 Quarks Daily, March 18, 2019
The Typewriter Lives, 3 Quarks Daily, January 21, 2019
This Year on Earth, 3 Quarks Daily, December 24, 2018
Earth Is (Still) a Clock, 3 Quarks Daily, November 26, 2018
A Neurotic Introvert Looks at Personality, 3 Quarks Daily, October 29, 2018
A Potency of Life, 3 Quarks Daily, October 1, 2018 (I wish I’d given this a more transparent title; it’s about books and hope.)
Learning to Live Without a Car, 3 Quarks Daily, September 3, 2018
An Intuitive Sense of How to Live, 3 Quarks Daily, August 6, 2018
Book review: Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness, by Susan L. Smalley and Diana Winston Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 14, Issue 48, November 30, 2010)
Book review: Among the Great Apes: Adventures on the Trail of Our Closest Relatives, by Paul Raffaele Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 14, Issue 47, November 23, 2010)
Book review: When Good Thinking Goes Bad: How Your Brain Can Have a Mind of Its Own, by Todd C. Riniolo Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 13, Issue 32, August 4, 2009)
Book review: The Hedgehog’s Dilemma: A Tale of Obsession, Nostalgia, and the World’s Most Charming Mammal, by Hugh Warwick Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 13, Issue 27, June 30, 2009)
Book review: The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path through Depression, by Eric Maisel Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 13, Issue 8, February 17, 2009)
Book review: Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, by Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 13, Issue 7, February 10, 2009)
Book review: Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins, by Maddalena Bearzi and Craig B. Stanford Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 12, Issue 42, October 14, 2008)
Book review: Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans, edited by Dan Gordon Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 12, Issue 28, July 8, 2008)
“Walking Into the Future: Pedestrian-Friendly Communities,” The Ryder, March 18, 2008, 19-21.
Book review: Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide, by Gillian Butler and Tony Hope Posted on Metapsychology Online Reviews (Volume 12, Issue 10, March 4, 2008)
“Valedictory for Galileo,” The Ryder, October 2003, 28-32.
“Ancient Mayans Meet Modern Media.” Indiana Alumni Magazine 65:3 (January/February 2003): 28-30.
“Strange Happenings,” Research & Creative Activity 24 (Spring 2002): 25-27.
“Going with the Flow,” Research & Creative Activity 24 (Spring 2002): 18-19.
“Quantum Mechanics Meets the Information Age,” Research & Creative Activity 23 (September 2000): 25-27.
“The World’s Most Performed Playwright,” LSAmagazine 23 (Fall
1999): 5-6, 8-10.
“The Human Face of Information,” Research & Creative Activity 22 (September 1999): 46-47.
“Making the Connection,” Research & Creative Activity 22 (September
1999): 34.
“New Opportunities in New Media,” Research & Creative Activity
22 (September 1999): 44-45.
“Farming Brings Change in Plains Weather,” Discovery Online News
Brief, July 28, 1998.
“Energy From the Wind,” Research & Creative Activity 20 (January 1998): 11-13.
“Meeting Energy Needs, Maintaining the Environment,” Research & Creative Activity 20 (January 1998): 14.
Changing Federal Science Funding and Policy, Occasional Paper, no. 2 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study, 1997)
Funding the Future, Occasional Paper, no. 1 (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana
University Institute for Advanced Study, 1997)
“Coming Home” (an autobiographical essay), Star Thrower Publishing, 1997.
“Healthy Sexuality and Adolescents,” Research & Creative Activity 20
(September 1997): 27.
“Reconceptualizing Sexual Arousal,” Research & Creative Activity 20 (September 1997): 21-22, 24-26.
“Serving the Community, Enriching the Profession,” Research & Creative
Activity 20 (September 1997): 23.
“Bringing Public Finance Home,” Research & Creative Activity 20
(April 1997): 34.
“Public Finance, Public Affairs,” Research & Creative Activity 20
(April 1997): 31-33.
“Avoiding Purple Leisure,” Research & Creative Activity 19 (January 1997): 26.
“A Legacy of Help for Young Athletes,” Research & Creative Activity 19 (January 1997): 20-22.
“Finding the Shape of Information,” Research & Creative Activity 19
(September 1996): 15-19.
“Scoping Out the Future: IU’s New Telescope Opens the Heavens,” The Ryder, June 1996, 6-8.
“A Comet for My Birthday,” The Ryder, March 15, 1996, 18-21.
“Astronomy’s Top Ten: 1995,” The Ryder, January 26, 1996, 10-11.
“Galileo: Long Distance Voyager,” The Ryder, December 1995, 22-25.
Articles in Great Events from History: Science and Technology (Salem Press, 1991):
- DeVaucouleurs identifies the local supercluster of galaxies
- Eddington formulates the mass–luminosity law for stars
- Hale discovers strong magnetic fields in sunspots
- Hale oversees the installation of the Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson
- Hartmann discovers the first evidence of interstellar matter
- Hertzsprung notes the relationship between color and luminosity of stars
- Hertzsprung uses Cepheid variables to calculate the distances to stars
- Hubble demonstrates that other galaxies are independent systems
- Manabe and Wetherald warn of the greenhouse effect and global warming
- Russell announces his theory of stellar evolution