Election Hangover

Hello world. Yesterday was election day in America. One guy won and another guy lost. But the race was hard fought, and our already divided country remains as polarized as ever. Did you listen to the last episode of This American Life? We don’t just disagree, we barely see each other as human beings. And [...]

Leaving a Mark

“Because it’s there.” Not good enough. The traditional explanation for our species’ imperative to go to the ends of the earth no longer holds, and it hasn’t held for a long time. An isolated population or two might still be lurking out there, somewhere, in a jungle or on an ice floe, harboring a “Because [...]

Krill Thrill: ‘Happy Feet’ and the end of woodland dominance

As far as obscure ecosystems go, the outer edge of expanding sea-ice sheets has got to be near the top of the list. Not algae-living-in-sloth-hairs obscure, I suppose, but then the algae that grow inside the sea ice have a significantly greater impact on just about everything else in the world, other than sloth hair. [...]

Day Tripper

By the time you read this post, 2011 will have already arrived at the South Pole. Even if you read it the instant it pops up on the Internet, at 7 a.m. EST December 31, 2010, the New Year will already be an hour old. You don’t have to go to the South Pole to [...]