Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.  —Christopher Hitchens What does the quote have to do with ghosts, aside from the fact that some studies show a healthy correlation between religious beliefs and ghost beliefs—in

It happens a lot. I get an email or text, or I’m chatting with someone at a party or a group hike. They tell me about a supernatural experience they had, or an impossible coincidence they read about, or some unearthly thing that happened to a friend of a friend’s niece. Is it good that when these folks encounter something weird, they think of me? I’m not sure, but I like that they trust me to listen without mocking. And often I can even help make sense of whatever it was. Wha

My earliest interest in cutting-edge science was mainly in evolutionary biology. As a high schooler, I watched National Geographic TV specials about archaeologist Louis Leakey, who unearthed the remains of early hominids in Africa. I read Robert Ardrey’s African Genesis and Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape. My interests “evolved” into the social sciences, but I still read books like Carl Sagan’s Dragons of Eden during college breaks, and discovered Richard Dawkins’ amazing The

We recently lost the wonderful Diane Keaton, perhaps best known for her portrayal of Annie Hall in the film of the same name. There’s a funny scene in the movie that’s relevant to this post. In it, Annie and her boyfriend Alvy beautifully illustrated how flexible words can be.   The words are “three times a week.”   How could such a precise phrase mean more than one thing?   Annie and Alvy appear on a split screen. Each is with their own therapist in the midst of a session, w

I love ice cream. But for the sake of our collective health, maybe I should give it up. It’s not just because the main ingredients of our beloved frozen indulgence are known to contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. No, it’s something a lot more urgent and insidious: Sharks!   Scientists have discovered a strong statistical link between ice cream sales and shark attacks on humans along coastal waters. For example, this graph appeared in   an article by Dr.

Post #4 discussed an absolutely amazing optical illusion. Here, we’ll take a somewhat deeper dive into the meaning and general...

I came across this remarkable optical illusion while writing an upcoming post about judgment errors. The illusion is so powerful that I...

To recap Part 1, a filmmaker working on a documentary contacted me about doing an on-camera interview. His subject was a vape shop where...

A few years ago, a documentary filmmaker contacted me about a project he was working on. Not far from where I lived, a business owner...

I had so many ideas for my first blog post. Instead of those, I decided to try to make it interesting. Interesting to others, that is....