Shelley Sonnet on Ballooning

Bright ball of flame that thro the gloom of even Silently takes thine ethereal way And with surpassing glory dimmst each ray Twinkling amid the dark blue depth of Heaven; Unlike the Fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom, Whilst that, unquenchable, is doomed to glow A watch-light by the patriot’s lonely tomb, A ray of courage to the opprest and poor…

 Science Takes No Sides--and No Prisoners

The great thing about science is that it takes no sides—and no prisoners. Once you know which research to trust, the big picture emerges and myths fade away. To gain my trust, research must pass my “grump factor.” To make it into this book, studies must first have been published in the refereed literature and then successfully replicated. Some results have been confirmed dozens of times. Where I make an exception for cutting-edge research, reliable but not yet fully vetted by the passag...