Bo Gardiner is an environmental analyst, naturalist, writer, and humanist/skeptic organizer. She's a former research hydrologist, EPA consultant, wildlife program director for a national NGO, and TV writer/producer. She holds a B.A. in communications and M.S. in environmental engineering sciences.
Bo writes on humanism, nature, science, skepticism and politics at her blog Under the Greenwood Tree. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter, and check out her videos on YouTube.
I used to buy a single lottery ticket occasionally. My rule was never more than one, because one was all I needed to let me dream. My rational brain required at least some small tangible evidence of the possibilities, however remote, in order to take off for Wonderland. And now, a group of citizen astronomers has just handed us a lottery ticket to a galactic Wonderland. Several headlines have alluded to a possible alien “megastructure” orbiting a star in our galaxy. Tabetha Boyajian is a Yale postdoc who coordinates a group of citizen science volunteers at PlanetHunters.org. They search for planets around thousands of stars by looking for interruptions in light patterns captured by the Kepler Space Telescope. In 2011, between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, the star KIC 8462852 was flagged as having potential for Earth-like planets. But there was something uniquely “bizarre” about KIC 8462852, The Atlantic reports: Read more
Sir, Got witches? Are you and your staff quite out of your Constitutionally derelict minds? With that best-ever opening to a church-state separation letter, attorney Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation notified Air Force officials that it’s time for them to get out of the witch-hunting business and give Deborah Schoenfeld back her her dental technician job. The Air Force Times reports: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is representing a former Air Force contractor who says she was fired from a dental clinic at Fort Meade, Maryland, after complaining that her co-workers discriminated against her because she was Hindu. She claims they then accused her of being a witch. Read more
Sunday’s episode of CNN’s news program Reliable Sources was mostly interesting, focusing on the dramatic decrease in media reporting of the Oregon college shooter’s name and face. This was a response to the gunman making clear he did this for fame, after wistfully writing online of the limelight won by other high-profile murderers. I expect this to be a trend for the future as we belatedly catch on to the problem. But then, the usually reliable host Brian Stelter had this to say: Read more
It’s a rallying moment for American Christians angered by the growing voices of the nation’s non-religious, however small a minority we remain. Christian communities online are feverishly crying, “Now do you believe we’re persecuted?” Political, cultural, and religious leaders are calling on Christians to rise up against their non-religious persecutors, accusing us of fostering violence, and demanding we take responsibility. That fever is rising with each news report about the massacre of nine people at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Read more
