Author Archives: Christian

“A wicked fun read.” — Kirkus Reviews (and who am I to argue?)

YA With Real Science BY LEILA ROY – Kirkus Reviews At the risk of bringing unwelcome attention to just how very little I paid attention in my high school science classes*, one of my favorite things about Christian Schoon’s Zenn Scarlett is that … Continue reading

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The James Webb telescope has a launch date. Should they have just penciled this in? Guess we’ll find out…

It’s been a looooong time coming. But this majorly major up-levelling of cosmic eye-balling may finally be about to make orbit. Stay tuned, earthers!https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-readies-james-webb-space-telescope-for-december-launch

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Boffins declare: LIFE ON VENUS! OK, maybe not so much. But hey, phosphine. So, there’s that.

Exciting news from our sister planet! Winged beings with a penchant for cross-species shenanigans? Well, not so far, sadly enough. Still, it’s early days… But OK, yes. We’ve found traces of phosphine, a possible exudate of a possible life form, … Continue reading

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Legendary Powell’s Books Sez “So Long, Jeff Bezos. Sorry! (Not sorry…)”

Just in time to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day, the globally beloved Powell’s Books brick-and-mortar-words-on-real-paper-palace in Portland announced it will no longer port its books over to gazillion-pound-clickgorilla Amazon. Many authors, of course, need that clickgorilla to keep afloat, but ya … Continue reading

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Yabba dabba… duhhh…whaaat?

According to IMDB, I co-wrote “The Flintstones: A Page Right Out of History.” This… is news to me. Now, to be fair, I DID write the scripts for a number of H-B shows back in the way-back. But still, kinda … Continue reading

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And now: meet the newest equine life form to appear at the ranchito: it’s Jumpin’ Jack Flash! (he’s the one lying down…)

Am pleased to present a newly arrived (and dang if he ain’t adorable) creature here at the Schoon ranchito — being gently bothered in the photo above by resident anthropoid and colt-whisperer, Kathleen. The newbie is our spankin’ fresh wonder-boy, … Continue reading

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Good worlds are hard to find! Or: Is THIS why we aren’t being swarmed by alien life-snoopin’ bots?

A recent Sci Am article considers the so-far-fruitless hunt for intelligent life beyond Earth and attempts to deal with Fermi’s query “if life is out there, where the heck is everyone?” Their take? Well, first of all, if self-replicating machines … Continue reading

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Earthly ocean vents & alien life. Hmmm… what’s the connection? Well, why don’t we just “Ask an Astrobiologist”?!

Lots of excitement bubbling up about the off-world life potentially lurking, swimming, feeding, breeding, having organizational invade-the-Earth meetings deep under the ice-covered oceans of several moons orbiting gas giants… right in our own solar system’s back yard! Sweet. Except for … Continue reading

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Do Elon Musk’s shiny Starships threaten to totally muck up our search for life on other planets? Possibly.

Any NASA spacecraft bound for any planet in the Solar System goes through some serious de-germ-ifying before it launches. The last thing we Earthers wanna do is dump a load of our microbes all over a planet that MIGHT be … Continue reading

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Hubble’s new-found exo-planet has the exo-life Holy Grail of room-temp Goldie-Locks-zone room-temp exo-water? Yes. But….

First of all, let’s not get all “Whoa! It’s Earth’s long-lost twin sister!” and “Near-Earth discovered!” and “Could there be life?! I think I see someone WAVING!” and other over-eager hyperventilating. This isn’t Terra v.2.0. Not Earth-y, huh? All right. … Continue reading

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