NEWS HEADLINES
-
'Unprecedented' rains in Japan kill four people
The storm cut power to more than 20,000 households and left 7,000 people stranded at Tokyo's Narita airport. read more
-
Palestinians told to leave homes in village where Israeli settlers besieged houses
The mayor of Qusra says Israeli troops have been telling families to leave their houses, using some as barracks. read more
-
US says dozens of countries helped China dodge Trump's tariffs
A new US report said China had moved goods through nations with lower tariffs to dodge higher levies. read more
-
Romania shuts only nuclear plant as heat causes huge drop in Danube River level
The Cernavodă plant, which produces 20% of Romania's electricity, is not expected to be restarted within the next 10 days. read more
-
Engine parts smashed Ryanair window that man's head was sucked out of, report says
A preliminary report by US investigators says an engine fan blade broke on last month's flight from Greece to Germany. read more
BIOGRAPHY
Stephen Jay Gould was born and raised in the community of Bayside, a neighborhood of the northeastern section of Queens in New York City. His father Leonard was a court stenographer, and his mother Eleanor was an artist whose parents were Jewish immigrants living and working in the city’s Garment District.[6] When Gould was five years old his father took him to the Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History, where he first encountered Tyrannosaurus rex. “I had no idea there were such things—I was awestruck,” Gould once recalled.[7] It was in that moment that he decided to become a paleontologist.
Raised in a secular Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice religion and preferred to be called an agnostic. Biologist Jerry Coyne, who had Gould on his thesis committee, described him as a “diehard atheist if there ever was one.

