WELCOME
Thanks for coming to visit my website. I write about science, technology, foreign affairs, and other subjects.
Follow me on Twitter: @kkakaesDrones and Aerial Observation
I edited and wrote part of a short book published by New America in July 2015 and freely available online, about how drones are being used in new ways around the world. It's meant to be useful to people who want to fly drones.The Pioneer Detectives
I published a short book with The Millions.
It's the story of the Pioneer Anomaly, a long-standing mystery. The book is short and fun—the length of a novella—but also, in the words of Amazon's reviewer, "powerful and sad". If you've got any curiosity about how NASA works behind the scenes or why scientists believe what they do, I think you'll enjoy the book.
It is available on Amazon as a Kindle Single and also on Apple's iBooks.Drone Wars
I wrote a chapter on the long history of drone technology going back to the early 20th century in this edited Cambridge University Press volume.
Anatomy of a search engine
16 September 2004
How Google works
A brief history of the world’s most revolutionary search engine. Plus, an interview with me about that brief history.
Medical Testing
9 September 2004
Sounds of silence
Drug companies may soon be forced to report the results of all clinical trials.
Telescopes in orbit
28 August 2004
X-ray specs
A retrospective on NASA’s Great Observatories, Compton, and Spitzer.
Understanding gravity
21 August 2004
An invisible hand
A gravitational mystery affecting pendulums and satellites–could General Relativity be wrong?
Quantum oddities
17 June 2004
In the twinkling of an ion
Two groups have succeeded in teleporting quantum states.
Profile: Dennis Ritchie, Unix pioneer
10 June 2004
Unix’s founding fathers
A profile of Dennis Ritchie and his colleaugues who first developed C, the programming language, and Unix.
The Bush administration and science
6 May 2004
On the turning away
How actions by the Bush administration are deterring foreign scientists and students from coming to America.
Plus a leader (editorial) on the same subject.
Understanding gravity
15 April 2004
Turn, turn, turn
A new satellite, Gravity Probe B, will test Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.