What is the Universe Made Of?

Good question.  I gave a public lecture (more specifically, the Lois McGlothlin Donaldson Endowed Lecture in Physics) on this subject at the University of Memphis last week -- if you are interested you can watch it here.

How Did We Survive the 1980s?

I just finished writing a short story that had to be set, for various reasons, in the early 1980s.  And I could feel my characters' pain.  How does one character find out about another one when there's no internet??  I couldn't have anyone type into a computer, call each other on cellphones, or look up facts on Wikipedia.