Warning: this post includes spoilers for Black Widow , Avengers: Endgame , and Spider-Man: No Way Home . Seems a small price to pay to understand the biophysical limits of the biosphere, but it's your call. So, are you sure you want that superpower? Have you noticed that superheroes usually have difficult lives and crushing responsibilities?

Which superpower would you choose and why? This seems a somewhat common "get to know you" question. Sometimes you're forced to choose between two (invisibility or teleportation?), perhaps to reveal particular features of your psyche. My choice is teleportation — I want to see my kids and grandkids but I want to live in Edinburgh.

It was the subtitle of this book ( From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution by Simon Conway Morris) that reeled me in, combined with my inability to resist reading the thoughts of Conway Morris on what that subtitle advertises: "Six Myths of Evolution." I'm about halfway through the book, and through three of the six myths.

One of my motivations for relaunching Quintessence of Dust was my desire to write about things I'm reading, whether books or articles. So here is a new series, pretty basic: What I'm reading, posted at the start of every month.

I have been thinking regularly about complicity for the last several years. It became a central ethical theme of mine in 2016 and it has occupied my thoughts and ideas since.

Bardolatry has been a cornerstone of Quintessence of Dust since I conceived it. I love the plays, sure, but there's always been something else going on. "Jane Anger"Shakespeare is one of those extraordinary phenomena that tempts us to seek extraordinary explanations. Like Harold Bloom, I think of the mystery as essentially unsolvable — Shakespeare is impossible.

My first post on John Farrell's The Day Without Yesterday identified two themes the book raises for me: the intellectual milieu into which modern cosmology came to be, and the reasons why Georges Lemaître was able to "lead Einstein and the rest of his generation into a new, truly dynamic model of the universe." (p. 53) The second post looked at the intellectual environment and ended like this: This question is

In my first post on John Farrell's The Day Without Yesterday , I identified two themes the book raises for me: the intellectual milieu into which modern cosmology came to be, and the reasons why Georges Lemaître was able to "lead Einstein and the rest of his generation into a new, truly dynamic model of the universe." (p. 53) Let's look at that milieu.

Let's start with full disclosure. John Farrell is a good friend, and we met here at Quintessence of Dust more than 15 years ago . John was one of the first people to read and comment on (and link to) the blog. We share many passions: science, faith/science interactions, writing, the Boston Red Sox, Shakespeare, and Harvard Square.

So, Quintessence of Dust is back in business. (A few days ago, I wrote about why.) Yay! Here are some soon-coming attractions. A couple are book-length projects at various stages of embryogenesis, but the rest are posts and series that represent ideas to dissect/develop and thoughts to get out in the world. 1. My main book project is yet untitled but is well defined enough (barely) to warrant some posts in which I can try out the ideas.