BEN BOVA

The prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is very worrying. The present government of Iran supports terrorism, and the thought of nuclear-armed terrorists is certainly something to be scared of.

I’m reading a very interesting book: The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, by Michael E. Mann.

“Science is just another way of looking at the world, no better than philosophy or religion or whatever world view you personally want to adopt.”

That could well be the byword of the 2012 political campaign.

The late astronomer Thomas Gold often said, "I'd rather be wrong than dull."

I write novels about the juncture where science and politics meet.

The Roman god Janus was the god of transitions, of endings and beginnings, of gates, doorways and time. He was usually portrayed as having two faces, one that looked forward, the other backward.

Christmas is all about love, but there's one aspect to Christmas that I don't like at all. I don't think of myself as a curmudgeon, but the fact is that I never send out Christmas cards.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Today I'd like to comment about the Tea Party movement.

There’s an old Chinese curse that reads, “May you live in interesting times.”

I saw the movie “Rocky” again on television a few nights ago. And, as usual, got a lump in my throat.

Fifty-four years ago, come Tuesday, Soviet Russia launched the first artificial satellite of Earth: Sputnik 1.

A few weeks ago I wrote a column about golf. Now I’m working on a short piece of fiction about constructing a golf course — on the Moon.

We’ve been through the memorials dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

It’s an ill wind that blows no good.

By the time you read this, I will be in Albuquerque, attending a science fiction convention.

Back in the early 1970s I served as the science adviser to one of the worst television shows of all time.

Many of my friends in Southwest Florida play golf. My dearest friend is an ardent golfer; she’s won a place in the Executive Women’s Golf Association’s national tournament for several years running.

I write prose, not poetry. I enjoy reading poetry, even reciting it aloud, but writing poetry is not for me.

The final mission of NASA’s space shuttle leaves me with mixed emotions.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about anthropologist Carleton Coon, who was drummed out of academia because of a politically incorrect idea he espoused.

Nearly every problem that faces us today can be traced to a single fact: there are so many human beings on Earth.

A few weeks ago I attended my grandson’s high school graduation, in Jupiter. Seeing him in cap and gown brought a stream of memories rushing through my mind.

Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of the United States of America.

Carleton Coon was a great anthropologist. He was also one of the earliest victims of political correctness.

Is there life on other worlds? Where is the best place to search for life in our solar system? Most people think Mars might be the most likely planet to harbor extraterrestrial life. Although NASA has sent probes to all ...

We’ve all complained from time to time about how poorly our Congress takes care of the nation’s problems. But a little note in this newspaper’s "On This Date" column reminded me recently that Congress can do the right thing — ...

One of the things I like most about science fiction is that the field allows you to take an idea and run with it. Such as:

Several readers have pointed out that my recent column about the relative safety of nuclear power did not consider either solar or wind power.

When you write science fiction, as I do, many people expect you to believe implicitly in flying saucers and visitors from other worlds.

The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has started people wondering again if nuclear power is safe enough to remain part of our energy picture.

My dearest friend and I recently took a thoroughly enjoyable two-week cruise on the Holland America liner Statendam.

The law of unintended consequences tells us that, in Yogi Berra’s words, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

More than half of the nation’s brightest science high schoolers belong to families that originally came to the United States from China, India or other parts of Southeast Asia.

The announcement that Myra Janco Daniels will retire as head of the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts leaves me feeling sad. Despite her physical stature, Myra is a giant.

The Prussian Carl von Clausewitz wrote in his classic book, “On War” (1832): “Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult.”

I experienced an interesting coincidence a few nights ago. My dearest friend and I went to see the film “True Grit” at a local movie theater.

It puzzles me that people will pay heed to stock-market analysts and weather forecasters, yet they will not read science fiction. After all, if you want to predict the future, science fiction has the best track record of all.

How many times have you seen a news story about a scientific breakthrough that begins with something like, “It may seem like science fiction, but it’s really true …”?

Imagine a world nearly 11 times bigger than Earth. A planet covered from pole to pole with gaudy bands of clouds racing at super-hurricane speeds.

Ever since H.G. Wells published The Time Machine (in 1895), people have been fascinated by the concept that one might be able to travel into the distant past, or the far future.

Rare earth elements are in the news. They have strange names, such as neodymium, scandium, yttrium.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? This phrase, from the first-century Roman satirist Juvenal, means, “Who will watch the watchmen?”

They’ve handed out this year’s Nobel Prize for literature, and I didn’t get it. Again.

People are still pretty scared of nuclear power, but I think we have a lot more to fear from flooding than from radioactivity.

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

When you wish upon a star. Makes no difference who you are

I became interested in astronomy when I was 11 years old, on my first visit to a planetarium. When they turned out all the lights and flashed the stars onto that domed ceiling, I was hooked for life.

They said it couldn’t be done. No less a genius than Leonardo da Vinci tried to design a workable airplane. He got as far as building a couple of gliders and apparently even soared off the roof of a barn ...

I’ve been following the debate over Jackson Laboratory with more than a little interest.