A so-called "March for Science" will occur April 22nd 2017.  I have half a mind to show up either wearing a sing extolling the climate change fighting virtues of nuclear power OR with a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide AND another petition banning all use of vaccines.  I'll bet I'd get at least 1 out of every 10 people at any such march to sign for those bans.

The arXiv.org (said as archive) is one of the oldest websites on the internet and serves as a curated collection of scholarly preprints submitted by recognized scientist.  I even have a paper there on massive star formation (arXiv:1311.3983).  I tried to publish in another area and they say submit to a journal and get feedback.  Then a favorable review isn’t enough, so I need to get it published.  Then in a subsequent email from them, I must get it published in a “mainstream journal” with no guarantee that being published in any journal would do the trick.

Jeffery Beall was keeper of a controversial list of predatory publishers that has been shut down. A big problem with this list is it was academically classist and biased towards journals in non-English speaking countries.  Rather than trash the idea of a list of predatory journals, I propose the idea of a non-comprehensive white list of journals combined with a list of questions one can ask for "is this journal predatory?". 

You will read in many places of Gene Cernan as the last man on the moon. He certainly was that. To me and to all of us in the Village of Bellwood Illinois he was a home town hero. Bellwood is a bedroom community, mostly homes and small manufacturing located 7 miles due west of Chicago. This suburb was much smaller when Cernan would have lived here. Never the less we were all proud of our astronaut. 
 He was joined in that distinction by Lee J Archambault who flew on several space shuttle missions to help construct the ISS. Together they gave this tiny town with hard water a bonified spacefaring tradition. 

Vera Rubin who helped to discover one of the greatest mysteries of nature has died.    She was the mother of astronomical dark matter investigation.  I won't write about her accomplishments at length ...