The extinction event may be better thought of as a still-shot from a video. Once the Earth was dominated by a diverse group of amazing animals, the dinosaurs. While there are competing taxonomies, there are about 700 known species of dinosaurs in about 300 genera. Dinosaurs filled niches across ecosystems…

In most cases, there’s no reason to kill these animals — and hardly worth the risk. Photo by ANGELO CASTO on Unsplash At some point, you will be confronted with a group of bees, wasps, or hornets. These social insects have a few things in common. They only live in…

Are We What Might Have Been? The Simulation Argument says yes. — Nick Bostrom’s trilemma and Simulation Argument 1) “The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero”, or 2) “The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero”, or

And I’m back to “raking it in” — My short-lived saga of deportation and exile is over. After getting the Media boot I am back in from the cold and once again warmed at the fires of the Partner Program. All told I was down for six days, and back up and running by the seventh day. …

A hundred followers to hold off the empire — Some 24 centuries ago, over the course of three days, the Spartan King Leonidas I held off the army of the Persian Empire of Xerxes I at the Battle of Thermopylae. The actual numbers of soldiers on either side of the conflict have been in debate for millennia, although the…

Come on, Medium, writers just want to be paid. — I have been posting on Medium now for several years. I am not always regular with my uploaded essays and stories but enjoy both the writing and feedback I get from the ideas I have shared. It’s been a pretty good deal. …

Lessons from the Natural World to Birth Better AI With a few notable exceptions such as fire and the wheel, evolution has toyed with the ideas behind just about every invention we have ever dreamed of. Flight as seen in the beating wings of a dragonfly. The mortar of a mud dauber’s nest. …

Let’s have a quick sit-down, shall we? How many times have I heard someone say, “Why do they spend so much money on space exploration? That money could be put to a better use right here on Earth.” Of course, they rarely follow through with better spending ideas. And while I don’t want to get bogged down…

From There to Here From Here to There — Something is coming. Something as astounding as creation itself. As mind-boggling as stellar nucleosynthesis or the discovery of flint knapping. Looking backward we see a vista of change. From where we stand, we can perceive the coming of the next change. And it will be profound. The Universe is an…