Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Polonium, for Sale?


Never has my career (nuclear physicist) seemed so...timely, as it does now, with this outrageous Litivinenko affair. But pity the poor guys at, yes, United Nuclear, legal salesmen of radioactive sources for the general public. Atomic experiments for boys, indeed.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Discover String Theorist

Interestingly, and flatteringly, I've been getting some emails directly from publishers and magazines promoting their products. I hope I have enough readers (but it's quality and not quantity, right?) to warrant this attention!

Anyway, the people at Discover.com have alerted me to an online chat with Lisa Randall, today from 2-3pm. Have a look/listen/read if you can. She's been making serious waves on popular culture this last year.

Of course I've had her book on my to-read list for a year and haven't managed to read more than the acknowledgements. On the other hand, I have been reading Lee Smolin's new book, which is being branded as "anti-string theory", but I've been finding fascinating for many other reasons. Stay tuned for my blog review.