The Last Word

March 18 – 22 FOLWON* guest poster Brooke Borel introduces the world to the bed bug hockey stick graph. Read it and you will understand why data journalism is about to change the world. That’s highly relevant for Erika’s post, because as she tells us, you only have control over your data until you become [...]

Brewing Up a Very Good Time

It started two Christmases ago.  That’s when I learned that beer is the new wine.  My nephew, a film student, came home from McGill expounding on the finer points of Belgian Gueuze and German Dunkelweizen.  And since then, foodie-friends have all but abandoned the pleasures of the grape for the more arcane delight of hops.  [...]

The Last Word

March 4 – 8 This week, Tom delved deep into the mystery of the SCOBY lumps found at the bottom of an old jug of apple juice. Think nature documentaries merely observe? Don’t read Erik’s post. Heather describes the conditions faced by an archaeology writer in the field. If we want to get rid of [...]

Redux: Survivor Woman

Heather posted this on July 16, 2010, a time when we had probably 13 readers so apologies to all 13. She’s referring to a post Ann wrote about being dead wrong about some science. She also testifies to the physically horrifying life of an archeology writer. Yesterday, my colleague Ann Finkbeiner fessed up to one [...]

The Sad Fate of Libertas Schultze-Boysen

In the first week of September 1942, 29-year-old Libertas Schultze-Boysen waited desperately for word of her husband Harro, an official in the Reich Aviation Ministry in Berlin. The couple had passionately espoused a cause that few Germans of the age dared even to discuss. With a small group of friends, Libertas and Harro organized a [...]

A Very Dark Corner of Indian Life

Young Indian feminists have begun calling her “Damini.” We don’t know her real name, but most of us have read about the terrible way she died.  Damini was the 23-year-old woman attacked and gang-raped in New Delhi on December 16 while returning home at night on a bus with a male friend. She died 13 [...]

The Last Word

31 December – 4 January Well, I guess we made it through 2012 without dying. So, drink up and get back to work. Heather wrote about the strange therapeutic, cultural, and linguistic history of the tattoo. Guest poster Emily Underwood examined a part of the body so complicated that it requires 10,000 processors to simulate. [...]

What’s in a Tattoo?

                                    A few years ago, when I was working in a somewhat gritty part of downtown Vancouver, I spotted a tough looking man with an unusual set of facial tattoos. On the right side of his face, someone [...]