Unintelligent Design

A monstrous discovery suggests that viruses, long regarded as lowly evolutionary latecomers, may have been the precursors of all life on Earth

Astronomical Newsletters

The following list purports to include free Newsletters of interest to the astronomical community and is kept up-to-date (somewhat) by Sarah Stevens-Rayburn (ST ScI). Titles known to have ceased publication prior to 1990 are specifically excluded (but are likely to be found in the Union List of Astronomical Serials).

The Wiki History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less

This was the inspiration for the book "A Briefer History of Time" and led to the Annals of Improbable Research History Translation Project. Reprinted from the AIR, Volume III, Number 1, January/February, 1997, p.27.

Light Pollution - and the return of the night

Who wants to look at stars – who needs astronomy? – when there's a "sports complex with a driving range and multi-purpose dome" nearby, burning with floodlights and halogens, incandescent in the American night? Who wants constellations when you can watch a "billboard on Route 22 in Wingdale, New York that is lit by a dedicated floodlight"? Who, after all, wants to put up with something called nighttime?

"scientist's (astronomer's) brain explodes"