My brother's both unmaterialistic and crackles of this world. Not an easy guy to buy a birthday present for. Circumstances beyond our control put us at odds with each other from the start, too. They evolved, but some years were lost in our friendship, during which I might've gotten to know him better.

Anyway, he always fascinates me, but is a little hard to decipher at times.

Now. I'm not a big sciencehead and can't say I check his website, Science Blog, daily. I did this morning, though, and realized two of my favorite things about him: his will to be optimistic for creaturekind (including humans); and his translation of that into physical reality.

Science Blog's a daily online magazine: science articles from journals, institutes and occasional newspapers, under subject headings like "Aerospace," "Geoscience," "Nanotech & Materials," and "Physics & Numbers." My brother chooses the articles, writes their headlines and posts texts beneath headlines. He also oversees advertising and reader-blogs. (It's a real-thing kind of a thing: by 5:44 p.m. PST today, 888 people had read one of today's front-page articles, 612 another.)

I was struck, today, by his generally positive editorial decisions, and how those seemingly small choices affected my mood. For example, headlines usually include an encouraging word (today's front page includes "readies," "boosts," "better" and "saves"). Headlines for "negative" stories, which could easily be tweaked for drama's sake (he's a clever guy), are moderately crafted (for example, today's "Energy Drinks Take Toll on Teeth" and "Tropics Are Next Emerging Disease Hotspot").

The positive headlines aren't misleading, either; articles generally imply faith in a...future. In no way is this part of the Armageddon machinery.

He's been quietly running this for years. For some reason only today did I notice his choices, though, and how they affected my outlook. I guess, also, what a volatile place the news in general has in my psyche.

On some level I believe everything I read, and from what I've heard, most people are built like that. How to deliver news seems to me like a pretty serious question, and "generally optimistically" seems to me the best answer. The possibility -- well, reality -- of a psychically safe place to get information about the state of us-and-our-environs (from a scientific angle, in this case) feeds my own faith in our future.

Thank you, brother! The more I know you, the better I like you!



P.S. A particularly fabulous story from today's front page.