Let me begin my posting of the day by answering that question at the top.  There is no convincing truth about flying saucers and extraterrestrial alien being real, or not. In one corner are scientists who work in this field.  That would include me, for I  spent time at NASA's Ames Research Center on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence .  But that was half a century ago. From Wikipedia : Historically, ufology has not been considered credible in mainstream science. [ 161 ] The scientific community has generally deemed that UFO sightings are not worthy of serious investigation except as a cultural artifact. [ 165 ] [ 123 ] [ 120 ] [ 166 ] [ 167 ] [ 168 ] [ 169 ]   These researchers mostly believe that there must be life somewhere in the universe, and most probably, there should be some intelligence. But when I was at Ames, you would be laughed out of the room if you even talked about flying saucers.  In other words, belief was very, very low. Today...

Our  final day in Seoul was immemorable.  Not much to say, so I have inserted comments on an issue of  Skeptical Inquirer  entitled  The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe .  I'm hoping to finish reading a paperback I have brought on this trip,  A History of Japan .  Only three of 18 chapters left. During long trips, I always bring along magazine subscriptions like  Scientific America n  and  Skeptical Inquirer , for they are both demanding of too much concentration, and keep piling up. The one I'm on is  Volume 49, Number 4, July/August 2025. This issue is especially interesting, pretty much summarizing their 50 years of publishing, with articles that swiftly summarize those topics of greatest interest to most. The fellows of the  Committee for Skeptical Inquiry  include people like Richard Dawkins, Ann Druyan (wife of Carl Sagan), David Morrison (you don't know him, but I do, for I once was a colleague of his at the Un...

I'll start today with a concern about how the USA has been invaded by the Delta variant, comparing how many new cases occurred yesterday :                                                New Cases/Million Population #1  U.S.  143,537                 431 #2  India  40,078                 28 #3  Iran  39,049                 648 #4  Brazil  35,891               168 #5  UK  32,961                   483 #6  France  28,554            437 Florida  24,869                  1157 Texas  24,869      ...