Before I get to the serious stuff, a quick story about John Conway, a.k.a. the " mathematical magician." I met him in 1993 in Princeton while working on " The Death of Proof." When I poked my head into his office, Conway was sitting with his back to me staring at a computer.

The dichotomy over the U.S. elections between Jews in America and Jews in Israel is stark and startling. While over 70% of U.S. Jews supported the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, almost 70% of Israeli Jews prefer the GOP incumbent, Donald Trump. Plausible amity; puzzling enmity It is, of course, not hard to understand the Israeli position.

Astronomers have for the first time discovered water in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting within the habitable zone of a distant star. The finding makes the world - which is called K2-18b - a plausible candidate in the search for alien life.