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The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. -
Category Archives: Animals
Kitty fostering: Mango and Mandarin!
We’ve had a new pair of foster kitties in our house for over a week, but I haven’t been able to get pictures of them because they’ve been hiding under the bed! On Sunday, Terry of F.U.R.R. (whose rescue kitties … Continue reading
Posted in Animals, Personal
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Vote for kitty Sasha!
I can’t resist doing a mini-bleg: vote for our kitty Sasha as cutest pet in the American Express Cutest Pet Photo Contest! The pic you’re looking for is: Voting runs to 10/1/2010, and you can vote every day for Sasha! … Continue reading
Posted in Animals, Personal
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Kitty fostering success!
Almost two weeks ago, I noted the arrival of two foster kitties in our home: Brewster and Breyer! Well, I’m happy to say that we dropped them off at their new hopefully “forever home” this evening! This was all done … Continue reading
Kitty fostering: Brewster and Breyer!
I’ll be doing more physics blogging in the near future — I promise! Work is keeping me quite busy at the moment and I haven’t had much spare time or energy to investigate topics in depth. Hopefully that will change … Continue reading
Posted in Animals, Personal, [Etc]
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Attack of the giant squid! (1874)
Last week, I ventured outside of my usual areas of expertise to discuss a paper I had stumbled across in a volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, dated 1790, “letter relative to the kraken”. This prompted … Continue reading
Posted in Animals, History of science
19 Comments
Hummingbirds are back!
The hummingbirds are back around, and drinking from our window-based feeder! I managed to get a really clear shot of one of them: The image is so clear, in fact, that if you zoom in on the full, hi-res version, … Continue reading
Posted in Animals
2 Comments
Swimming (well, kneeling) with stingrays!
This past week I’ve been rather quiet about blogging and tweeting because I’ve been on vacation with the Wife and some of her family in Myrtle Beach, SC. We just returned yesterday and had a quite nice time, though like … Continue reading
Posted in Animals, Travel
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A visit to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
Over the weekend, the Wife and I visited some of her relatives in Cleveland. Though it was a very short trip, we managed to take a trip to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, which has a nice collection of exhibits. We … Continue reading
Posted in Animals, Travel
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You could learn a lot from a ducky: the van Cittert-Zernike theorem
(Alternate titles considered for this post: Ducktoral degree, Send in the ducks, Proof by in-duck-tion, Duck Tales, Duck-ing the issue.) One of my specializations in optics is the theory of optical coherence, which is the theory that characterizes the random … Continue reading
Posted in Animals, Optics
29 Comments
Into the doggie Abyss…
Update: Alas, it was not meant to be. My wife is very allergic to the dog, and I’m pretty allergic myself (quite unusual for a Shih Tzu); also, the cats are not adapting well and are very traumatized (which is … Continue reading
Posted in Animals
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Skulls in the Stars 