The Last Word

April 30 – May 4 Guest poster Sam McDougle starts the week the only way any week should ever start: with space dinosaurs. Anyway, his post seems to be about space dinosaurs; inside, you find a question about how far scientists should stretch the implications of their research to draw attention to the science (I [...]

Science: The Never Ending Adventure!

Who is a scientist? Well, there’s the reality. And that has been nicely documented recently under the #iamscience hashtag on Twitter. (Storify version of its origins here.) But then there are the perceptions. The preconceptions. The stereotypes. And because scientists are nearly as prone to mirror gazing as journalists are, it’s perhaps no surprise that [...]

The Last Word

April 23 – April 27 This week, Ann does what put Ann on the map: she tells us about spy organisations and what they like to do in space. And then tells us about the citizen scientists who use binoculars, stopwatches and math to figure out what they’re up to up there. With the help [...]

Generation Anthropocene: Podcasting at the dawn of a new era

When I stepped back from full-time writing a few years ago, I knew that I would be giving up something I loved for something I felt was crucially important. But I had no idea what I would gain by making teaching, at Stanford University, a big part of my work life. In fact, I’m still [...]

Snail Season: The San Fran Remix

When Cameron delivered the last word on brown garden snails on Monday — great, biblical swarms of the things — I knew I’d have to respond, and visually too, since she said it all so well. I do battle with the demon mollusks a few hundred miles north of Cameron’s besieged garden, as the images [...]

The Last Word

March 5 – March 9 Today I’m calling on the power of the crowd to resolve an internal debate: What do you hear yourself think when you see the letters LWON? Are we LaWon or Elwon? The reason I ask is that this week, we got a new person of LWON! Do I welcome Cameron [...]

Surveying the tree of life, with envy (Or, why can’t a boy be more like a … copepod?)

A few recent experiences in the realm of potty training have me thinking about the shortcomings of the human machine. Evolution, for the most part, has been kind to us. But the intelligent designer was missing in action, apparently, when it came time to assign our powers of excretion and elimination. The fish and birds [...]

The Last Word

February 20 – 24 This week, Michelle bestowed upon a grateful universe the phrase “probably unpleasant but non-lethal chipmunk ear punches” Cassie wept as a doctor sang to her awkwardly in Spanish Ann showed us that up close, cosmological dark matter looks like poppies Tom found the sole heir to They Might Be Giants’ science [...]