A review of How to Find a Habitable Planet by James Kasting. The problem of representing the heterotic superstring: Sean Miller explores the necessary role of an imaginary in string theorists' search for a coherent "theory of everything". Non-stop cosmos, non-stop career: An interview with Roger Penrose. From Big Think, an interview with Michio Kaku. Every black hole contains another universe? Like cosmic Russian dolls, our universe may be nested inside a black hole in another universe, a new study suggests. More and more and more and more and more on The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski. More on The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes. A review of Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information by Vlatko Vedral (and more). Physicists are unsatisfied with the supreme ability of quantum theory to predict how stuff behaves at very small scales, and are following the lead of its original architects, such as Bohr, Heisenberg and Einstein, in demanding to know what it means. How long is a day, or how long does it take the Earth to spin once on its axis? A new study finds some sciences really are better than others. With the Large Hadron Collider up and running, expectations are high: Shouldn’t discoveries start pouring in? The force is weak with this one: Scientists measure a few yoctonewtons for the first time. A review of The Tunguska Mystery by Vladimir Rubtsov. A review of In Praise of Science: Curiosity, Understanding, and Progress by Sander Bais. Science warriors' ego trips: The champions of empiricism show an unattractive hubris when they go after what they see as pseudoscience. A review of Our Undiscovered Universe: Introducing Null Physics by Terence Witt. Here are excerpts from Physics For Dummies by Steve Holzner.
