Sunday, October 7, 2012

This Blog is Reanimated

It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada and I think I should use the time to start regular posts on this neglected blog.  So I think I should outline the main areas and topics I plan to cover and why.  One obvious area is politics and political economy both Canadian and global.  Also I intend to comment on the books I am currently reading or recently read.  Currently I am reading "The Price of Inequality" by  Joseph Stiglitz (the Nobel prizewinning economist), in many ways it is central to my current political concerns, the growth of oligarchic hegemonism  and its use of neo-liberalism to redistribute wealth upward from ordinary working people to the ultra-rich (nowadays often referred to as the 1%).

The other main area I intend to comment on is science.  Having spent all my working life in research laboratories both in industry and universities, science should be an obvious area of interest. My area of expertise is instrumental analytical chemistry, not the most interesting topic to blog on, though I intend to touch on it at times if something interesting turns up.  However having been educated at the tri-junction of  chemistry, biology and physics it is not surprising that I have developed a passing interest evolutionary theory, quantum chemistry and ever since my teens, cosmology. So I definitely intend to cover these topics.

With regard to evolution I am also currently reading  Rebecca Stott's "Darwin's Ghosts, The Secret History of Evolution" this has an unfortunate subtitle given to the North American edition its' more accurate subtitle in the original British edition was "In Search of the First Evolutionists" which is one of the things I will discuss here when I finish the volume.  One important topic in current biology is the ENCODE debacle and its supposed obituary of Junk DNA.  I have to get a post together on this to try and analyse the controversy.

In the area of cosmology I plan that in addition to discussing recent popular books on cosmology, to post links to interesting recent articles on arXiv to draw them to the attention of non specialists like myself.

Finally my wife has suggested I comment on our wine choices.  We have just finished a bottle of Cattier champagne (Champagne Cattier Brut Premier Cru) for our anniversary and are opening a bottle of Cava Reyes de Aragon Brut Reserva.  So you see our tastes tend towards sparkling wine.

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