Hundreds of generations over tens of millennia have observed the night sky’s wandering, pale red dot with fascination, but it is only in the last tens of years that we have begun to know Mars as a world. Though far removed from nineteenth-century dreams of sweeping vegetation and colossal canals, the Mars revealed to us… Continue reading

Whenever people walk in on me watching Vladimir Putin on Russia Today (RT) and see my notebook full of Russian handwriting, suspicious looks are often given, and questions usually arise – including, occasionally, what government I’m working for. Fear not. I’ve never participated in a high-stakes poker game, nor do I carry around a syringe… Continue reading