A beautiful sunset (and moonrise) in Millstatt, Carinthia, Austria.
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A beautiful sunset (and moonrise) in Millstatt, Carinthia, Austria.
Read moreThis year we celebrate Stuart Kauffman’s 80th birthday. Kauffman was one of the early proponents of the view that the complexity we see in biological systems is not necessarily a consequence of natural selection alone, but could result[…]
Read moreMy 3-part series of popular science articles on the history of origin of life research has been published in ORBITER magazine. Part 1 presents a “pre-history” of how the origin of life became a real scientific problem in[…]
Read moreI’m staying in a little village called Lackenberg, to do some hiking in the area. After arriving, I walked around a bit in and around the village, and then watched a beautiful sunset from the balcony of my[…]
Read moreOn Tuesday 16 July, 2019, there was a partial lunar eclipse visible from most of Europe. I decided to spend the night in a hut halfway up a mountain near Vienna to watch this eclipse, and invited some[…]
Read moreThe unresolvable error.
Read moreThe graves of greats…
Read moreTheresa’s Brexit dance…
Read moreA particular mathematical relationship known as a power law has been observed in many day-to-day situations, from the frequencies in which words are used in natural languages to the connectivity distribution in Facebook friendship networks. As it turns[…]
Read moreCrime alert: theft of bicycle
Read moreA “supermoon” happens when a full moon occurs around the same time that the moon is at its closest point to the earth (perigee) in its elliptical orbit around our planet. This means that the full moon will[…]
Read moreLost in translation (once more…)
Read morePredator publishers vs. beautiful birds.
Read moreTwo years ago I published an article in Plus magazine debunking claims buzzing around on the internet about a supposed recent increase in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and so on. In that article I showed in detail how[…]
Read moreMy good friend Charles Tichenor has been playing the piano since he was a little kid. And he’s still going at it tirelessly at his weekly Chat Noir Cabaret show at the Los Magueyes Mexican restaurant on Burro[…]
Read moreA hike with humor…
Read moreAnother spectacular sunset viewed from the Fort Marcy Park in Santa Fe. Click each pick for a full size view!!
Read moreIn complex systems science, the notion of complexity is often summarized with the phrase “the whole is more than the sum of its parts“. This expression can be traced all the way back to the early Greek philosopher[…]
Read moreThanksgiving full moon…
Read more“Developmental bias is a manifestation of a much more fundamental principle, and is the norm rather than the exception”, according to one scientist. “Developmental bias is a misleading term and we should get rid of it”, according to[…]
Read moreFunny clocks and counters…
Read more“Since you are a computer scientist, I have an optimisation problem for you!”, my colleague said, half jokingly. As an ecologist, one of the things my colleague studies is invasive plant species. The question he was facing is[…]
Read moreCollect moments, not things…
Read moreAn (almost) full moon (98% illuminated) rising above Thessaloniki, Greece, as viewed from the balcony of my hotel room. A rather hazy evening, so no exceptional shots, but very beautiful to watch anyway! (Click each pic for a[…]
Read moreMany systems in nature consist of a large number of relatively simple units that interact only locally, and without a central control, yet the system as a whole can perform sophisticated global information processing, or produce intricate globally[…]
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