Happy Birthday: Neil deGrasse Tyson (born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210 million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. Since 1996, he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003.

From 1995 to 2005, Tyson wrote monthly essays in the "Universe" column for Natural History magazine, some of which were later published in his books Death by Black Hole (2007) and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (2017). During the same period, he wrote a monthly column in StarDate magazine, answering questions about the universe under the pen name "Merlin". Material from the column appeared in his books Merlin's Tour of the Universe (1998) and Just Visiting This Planet (1998). Tyson served on a 2001 government commission on the future of the U.S. aerospace industry and on the 2004 Moon, Mars and Beyond commission. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal in the same year. From 2006 to 2011, he hosted the television show NOVA ScienceNow on PBS. Since 2009, Tyson has hosted the weekly podcast StarTalk. A spin-off, also called StarTalk, began airing on National Geographic in 2015. In 2014, he hosted the television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a successor to Carl Sagan's 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences awarded Tyson the Public Welfare Medal in 2015 for his "extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science".

Just Finished Reading: The Little Book of Hygge – The Danish Way to Live Well by Meik Wiking (FP: 2016) [285pp] 

To be honest, as I usually am, I picked this up because it looked just so damned cute! The actual contents, text and photographs, came second. Thankfully they were both very good indeed. 

I’ve long been interested in different ideas of well-being from around the world and across time, so this looked like an idea light read. The Danes regularly score highly as the happiest people on Earth. Indeed, they get a little miffed (though not for long I imagine) when they periodically and very temporarily get knocked off the top slot. This being the case there’s little surprise that the Happiness Research Institute (who published this book) is based in Copenhagen. The question of WHY the Danes are just so damned happy is what the author attempts to answer. 

A huge part of that answer is, apparently, the concept of Hygge – pronounced hoo-ga which can be VERY roughly translated as ‘cosiness’. Imagine standing in your home (or the home of a dear friend) looking out the window as a snow storm is passing, dressed in a warm, cozy thick jumper, cup of hot chocolate, tea or coffee in hand, with a log fire burning and the sound of friends laughing behind you as they prepare food together, calling over to you to finish the pie everyone wants to taste – oh, and the room has numerous candles burning and there’s soft music playing, something classical or light jazz... That’s Hygge. 

Heavily illustrated throughout, with some quite excellent photographs scattered through the book, the book contains ideas for hygge events, food (complete with recipes), drinks (ditto), home decor ideas, places to visit (mostly in Copenhagen), places to eat (ditto) and a special chapter on a hygge Christmas. Well written (I found myself smiling throughout the entire read) and lavishly illustrated (I was most impressed as you might be able to tell!) this was a delightful read from cover to cover. Cute in itself as an object and full of good ideas. Highly recommended.      

It's OCTOBER! That means it's one of my favourite months here at SaLT - Monster & Horror Month! So, get ready to shiver (a bit) and laugh (a bit more) in the coming days/weeks...