How we know the universe began with a bang
Welcome to Ramin’s Space, the newsletter from journalist and writer Ramin Skibba, which you can read about here. If you like it, please consider subscribing and sharing this post. Just wanted to say thank you to my new subscribers, too.
I’m happy to share some of my new freelance writing. I start as WIRED’s space writer tomorrow, so stay tuned for more there soon!
When the Big Bang Was Just a Theory
In a key part of physics history that’s often forgotten today, Russian-American nuclear physicist George Gamow and British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle clashed in the mid-20th century about whether the universe began with a bang or whether it’s more of a steady-state, with no beginning or end. Glad I could write this book review for the New York Times, in a piece that also considered the question: When do we decide to abandon a theory?
It’s Time for a New International Space Treaty
What will happen when billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson — or the space barons of the future — decide to do whatever they like in the atmosphere or on the moon or beyond? What’s to prevent the US or other countries testing or deploying weapons in space? We have few rules in place right now, along with some precarious “norms,” so in this opinion piece in Undark magazine, I make the case for an ambitious new space treaty for the 21st century. If we want space exploration to be a very different enterprise than colonialist expansion overseas in the 15th and 16th centuries, we need to aim high, while settling some conflicts on Earth.
Predicting when the next bluff will fall
Coastal cliffs are collapsing more than ever before, putting people’s lives, homes and infrastructure at risk. Parts of Southern California, including near where I live in San Diego, these bluffs are particularly vulnerable, and a major Amtrak rail line was recently almost severed by a collapsing bluff. In this story for Hakai magazine (which was republished in The Atlantic), I dive into research on determining which bluffs in the area are most prone to fail, in the hopes of aiding tough choices about where to buttress the coast and where to retreat.
In other writing…
The US is getting COVID booster shots, and the world is furious
The Biden administration recently announced that this fall, healthy fully-vaccinated Americans can get a booster eight months after their last shot. While there’s evidence that immunity wanes, many researchers argue that shots for unvaccinated people accomplish more than boosters for the vaccinated. Doesn’t it make more sense to address vaccine inequities? Good piece in WIRED by Maryn McKenna, who’s one of my new colleagues.
Edgar Allan Poe’s other obsession
I didn’t realize that Poe frequently engaged with science and empirical methods — at a time when modern science was just being developed. His story, “The Sphinx,” is set during the cholera outbreak in New York in the 1830s, when public-health experts couldn’t agree exactly how the disease was spread. Sound familiar? I like this book review essay by Daniel Engber in The Atlantic.
Biodiversity is a social construct
How do you define “biodiversity,” exactly, and how do you track it? Scientists are reluctant to make judgments about whether an ecosystem is “healthy” or “unhealthy,” and in any case, such judgments rarely account for the role of humans in the system. Interesting piece by Clare Fieseler in Vox.
What animals see in the stars, and what they stand to lose
It’s not just humans who appreciate and depend on the night sky; some creatures, like dung beetles and harbor seals, use starlight to navigate. A new study in the journal Current Biology shows how much of the animal world needs the stars—and how much those animals stand to lose as light pollution from cities makes them harder to see. By Josh Sokol in the New York Times.
What really happened when Google ousted Timnit Gebru
The whole situation with Google firing Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell doesn’t bode well for the development of so-called ethical artificial intelligence. If Big Tech can’t take criticism from within, it’s hard to imagine independent researchers alone spurring these companies to make sure their AI systems are as fair and unbiased as possible. By Tom Simonite in WIRED.
Space billionaires, please read the room
If you were disgusted by the expensive schoolyard rivalry between Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, you’re not alone. Branson and Bezos picked a bad time for their joyrides along the edge of space, in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, economic recession, and climate-driven disasters. And it rarely goes acknowledged that Bezos’s and Elon Musk’s space ventures are funded partly by their poor treatment of their workers. Excellent piece by Shannon Stirone in The Atlantic.
What I’m reading: I just finished Octavia Butler’s Afrofuturist and science fiction novel, Parable of the Sower. While I’m critical of Branson’s and Bezos’s space trips, Butler’s book got me thinking about what kinds of space exploration we should support during this time of crisis. I believe there is a place for space, especially when space activities are designed to benefit everyone. We should simultanously strive for equality, sustainability and peace in space—and on Earth.
Looking back: Five years ago this month, I published my first feature story, Fire Mountains, about scientists’ approach to wildfires in the Sierra Nevada and about what it feels like, learning to live with fire. As the Dixie Fire and Caldor Fire continue to blaze in Northern and Eastern California, the same issues only feel more relevant today.
More about me: I’m an astrophysicist turned science writer and freelance journalist based in San Diego. You can find me at my website, raminskibba.net and on Twitter @raminskibba. I’m also former president of the San Diego Science Writers Association (SANDSWA) and on the board of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), though the opinions I express are mine alone. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you’re welcome to subscribe too.