The 13th floor and other superstitions
At a hotel recently I was zooming up in its sleek elevator to my room when I noticed something: no 13th floor.
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Science
In class: Semmelweis as epistemological hero
Prior to the discovery of germ theory and antiseptic, women frequently died of puerperal fever in the maternity ward at the University of Vienna Hospital. Enter Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian-born physician working at the Vienna hospital, one of the world’s leading medical establishments. Carl Hempel’s account of Semmelweis’s false starts, failed hypotheses, and eventual success
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The universe near us
Click on the image to see a larger map of the nearby universe, with us at the center. As described by Gregg Easterbrook: “The map contains about 100,000 dots. The dots are not stars; each dot represents a galaxy, and galaxies are thought to average about 100 billion stars each. Thus the area depicted contains
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We have to consider sacrificing Maryland
I think we have to consider sacrificing Maryland. Some of my best friends are Marylanders. Nothing personal, guys, but this healthcare thing is important, and there’s only one way to break the impasse: hard scientific experimenting. Here is the plan. We isolate Maryland and turn it into a giant test case. We send in a
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Two cautionary tales about cholera, the plague, and politics
Cautionary Tale #1 The plague hit London again in the hot summer of 1665. Panic struck and rumors abounded about its cause. The Lord Mayor of London was convinced of one theory: the plague was spread by cats and dogs. So he ordered all the city’s cats and dogs killed, and an estimated 40,000 dogs
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