The Cold Case of SN 1054 One of the most thrilling events on the sky would be Supernova (SN) event. Here, we investigate possible causes for missing historical records of SN1054 in Europe. We reconstruct the European sky at the time of the event and found that the new “star” (SN1054) and planet Venus are […]

“Quantification of Fossil Data” and an update on the fossil identification app ABSTRACT: It has been over 75 years, since Charles Butts published his famous and classic monograph on the fossils of the Appalachian mountains in 1941. Recently, I have been in the process of updating the taxonomy of his work and I am in […]

"Discrepancies in the Measured Expansion Rate of the Universe" Abstract: The most basic parameter in our description of the expanding Universe is the current expansion rate, given by the Hubble Constant. A mere two decades ago, the value of that constant was uncertain to a factor of two. Since then, the face of cosmology has […]

"CRISPR" "New Advances in Genetic Engineering: The Nuts, The Bolts, Frankenstein Monsters?, and Ethics"   In the last 150 years we’ve had an amazing advancement in our understanding of the genetic code that programs life. While some technologies for manipulating genes have developed in the last few decades, new programmable systems have been discovered in […]

Copernicus' Epicycles Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) is sometimes called the father of modern astronomy. He's famous for introducing to Western Europe a thorough and worked-out model of the Solar System with the Sun at the center. At the time, nearly everybody accepted Ptolemy's Earth-centered model, with planets riding on celestial spheres, and riding on epicycles inside […]