When the exoplanet expert takes up his recently announced appointment at Ball U in Indiana (despite controversy), it would be interesting to see him tackle this question: The narrow, sharp-edged and slightly off-centre rings of dust that surround some stars may be the result of interactions between gas and dust, rather than the gravitational effects of planets, as previously proposed. The finding, published in this week’s Nature1, could dramatically affect estimates of the number of exoplanets hiding in such stellar systems. Many nearby stars, especially young ones, are surrounded by disks of dust debris, which orbit the stars at distances roughly equivalent to that at which Pluto orbits the Sun. Embedded in some of those disks are dust rings that Read More ›

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which bills itself as “the nation’s largest association of atheists and agnostics, working to keep religion out of government,” ran an advertisement in The New York Times on July 4, 2013 (see page A7 of the paper edition), inviting Americans to “Celebrate our Godless Constitution.” Now, I’ll say a little more about the American Constitution in a moment, but before I do, I’d like to comment on the advertisement’s quotations from the writings of Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and the first four Presidents of the United States, in support of their cause. In the words of the FFRF press release accompanying the New York Times advertisement: “The ads quote U.S. Founders and Framers on their Read More ›