Author Archives: Alex R. Howe

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About Alex R. Howe

I'm a full-time astrophysicist and a part-time science fiction writer.

Boston, Reddit, and the problem of quality control

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

By now, you probably know all about the bombings at the Boston Marathon last week that left 3 people dead and 176 injured. It has its own Wikipedia page now, if you’re not up to speed. In the ensuing investigation, … Continue reading →

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Fun with word counts

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Quick, which one of these books has more words in it? Have a guess? The book on the left has 516 pages, which at about 330 words per page means it probably has about 170,000 words, give or take. That’s … Continue reading →

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Red suns

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

The most common type of stars in the universe are Type-M dwarfs, better known as red dwarfs. These are stars that are less than about half the mass of our Sun, less than a tenth as bright, and much cooler, … Continue reading →

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De-extinction: not to be or to be?

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

The latest word in environmentalism is “de-extinction”: resurrecting species that have gone extinct by cloning them (or occasionally by selective breeding, such as recreating the wild aurochs from domestic cattle). While there are a handful of species we might actually … Continue reading →

Posted in Biology, Genetics | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

How to take a picture of the universe

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Astronomers take pictures of stuff in the universe all the time, but it’s not every day that we get to take a picture of the universe. Today was one of those days, and this is the picture. This is a … Continue reading →

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New title

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

I decided I needed something snazzier than just putting my name across the top of the page, especially since it’s already in the side bar and the address bar. After Googling a few phrases to see if they were taken, … Continue reading →

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Book review: Stone Spring by Stephen Baxter

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Stephen Baxter is one of the most versatile speculative fiction authors writing today, with works ranging from near future to far future to parallel universes to the distant past. He won fame for his award-winning Vacuum Diagrams and his bestselling … Continue reading →

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The Sun plays nice…for now

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

The Sun has been acting kind of weird for close to five years now. The good news is that it’s been oddly quiet. The less good news is that we don’t really know why. The Sun undergoes an 11-year magnetic … Continue reading →

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250 words per day: the dark side

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

I wrote before about the Magic Spreadsheet, which is the only thing that has ever really gotten me to write daily. I’m happy to report that I am at 51 days and counting, but it’s been getting harder, and the … Continue reading →

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In the sky: Comet PanSTARRS is here

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

The first bright comet of 2013 is entering the northern skies this weekend. Comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) will be brightest for the next three days or so, rivaling the stars of the Big Dipper. The exact position in the sky … Continue reading →

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