Starship Asterisk*

The objection is with the APOD statement: Pine trees line the foreground. And (deciduous) larches might be said to be pine trees in the broader sense of the word . The APOD says nothing about their being evergreens. But the APOD link for "pine trees" does lead to the Wikipedia page for th...

Those are some pretty sparse "pine" trees. Based on the shape of the crowns, I'd bet they're larch trees, most likely (Larix decidua) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Larch. Just in case anyone's wondering...

At any rate, today’s APOD reference to our 5 billion year end point made me worry in wonder as to where our descendants will live. Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but most likely our species will and any descendants will be extinct well before 5 billion years from now. Whether mankind is 4.5 m...

Any biologist who uses "evolve" to describe developmental changes of an organism should be slapped up-side the head and stripped of all funding and/or teaching responsibilities. I will grant you that biologists did not invent the term and do not have exclusive rights to it. But the lay pub...

The November 12, 2006 APOD refers to "stellar evolution". Usually it's the biologists that have physics envy--I didn't realize that it went the other way! The public is confused enough about the concept of evolution without making it worse by applying it to unrelated concepts in other fiel...