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...

Sunday is my day for spiritualism and philosophy.  So today I inquire into why we are here.  There is, of course, the biblical version, where God created everything.  But you can refer to the   Bible   or   Quran   or other historical source to find this answer. This not a particularly religious blog site, so I will instead today look into how  Homo sapiens  came to be and maybe not quite answer the question of  why  we are here. The Big Bang, followed by the subsequent formation of stars and galaxies, is the leading theory of our beginning, from which came our solar system with Planet Earth, then evolution to us.  You've seen these forms of graphic before: Clearly, there are galaxies, and our Milky Way is but one. When you look up into the night sky, almost all what you see are stars from our own galaxy.  If you searched and searched with your naked eye, you would be able to see only three galaxies.  The others are t...

A lot of Trump stuff in the news, but I'll let you  watch the Lawrence O'Donnell Show on MSNBC to bring some reality to what is happening .   Senate today votes on whether  Pete Hegseth  becomes Secretary of Defense. That  DEI order  about the federal government order.  This is just the beginning of what will affect people of color, especially African Americans, in the years to come.  Many of them are going to be pissed about voting for Trump. The mass deportation arrests have begun .  In time there will also be a lot of irritated Hispanics. President Donald Trump is visiting North Carolina and California today .  Want to know how your state will be accommodated if you have a cataclysmic natural disaster?   See what he says today .  Hawaii is in bad trouble, for a higher percentage of presidential voters supported Biden than California, and our governor flew to DC to protest the nomination of RFK Jr. for health secret...