[{"id":36765,"date":"2026-08-31T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loz.zmk.mybluehost.me\/?p=36765"},"modified":"2026-08-30T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T13:59:18","slug":"36765","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/31\/36765\/","title":{"rendered":"Songs of Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And here we are enduring another wet blast of late summer’s hot breath, a last gasp before fall blows in. This imminent transition of seasons is always a thoughtful time for me, for many of us. Here’s how I was thinking about it a few years ago.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Squirrels are comforted<\/a> by birds\u2019 easy chit-chat, new research tells us. Biologists already knew the scurrying rodents tuned into birds\u2019 alarm calls, but they didn\u2019t realize that the mammals responded to songs about the good times, too. Content chirps suggest to squirrels that all is well.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this time of year especially I find that sounds tell a comforting story. Here at the edge of the woods, at my Virginia cabin, late summer stretches and layers the crickets\u2019 songs and deepens the quiet. The breezes are still-warm, breathy farewells to August. Birds, less riotous at the feeder, are choosier with their calls but certainly not silent: While no longer desperate to mate, those that don\u2019t migrate still have territory to claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today a few singular voices are cutting through the crickets\u2019 hum\u2013though I\u2019ll admit I confuse the bluejay\u2019s and the red-shouldered hawk\u2019s caws unless I hear them side by side. Somebody\u2019s crisp piercing note rises above another\u2019s cascading dribble. I don\u2019t know who\u2019s who; clearly, I need to work on my bird IDs. But September\u2019s in progress, these voices tell me: Revel in this transitional world.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The ways smells tap into memory,<\/a> the sounds of home, I find, go deep and loosen knots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have one of those percolating coffee pots\u2013this one handed down two generations now\u2013that truly sputters, moans, and sighs. There is no better, kinder alarm. And the ceiling fan wobbles just a tad, calling attention to itself, promising with its slight rattle that warm days are still to come. (I like to say that winter is still just a whisper in another room.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At night, I am early to bed, he stays up late. I lie awake waiting for the whoosh through the pipes, the shower spray\u2019s uneven battering of the tub floor as steam encircles tired shoulders. Then, the squeaky turning of knobs, the water\u2019s silence, the rubbing of towel on skin. And soon, a distinct clack\u2013the front-door lock engaging, thank goodness he remembered\u2013then two snaps: bathroom goes dark, hallway goes dark. Ease. Another day has closed. Tomorrow might be grayer, cooler, the light at a new angle. That\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the finale: The dog paws at the blankets at my feet, claws raking against fabric; he circles once, twice, then flops down, waits a beat, and exhales fully. That sigh settles my heartbeat every time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fall, of course, will bring its own music\u2014the zip of jackets, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the crackle of fire. These are cliches, perhaps, but powerful just the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this anteroom to fall\u2013as birds settle down (to squirrels\u2019 relief) and the first crumpled leaves meet now-brittle grass (you can hear them land if you really listen)\u2013has its own subtle sounds, those of a dog-tired season beginning to let go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Birds by Annatsach \u2013  (Wikimedia commons)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tree by Charles Patrick Ewing (Wikimedia commons)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And here we are enduring another wet blast of late summer’s hot breath, a last gasp before fall blows in. This imminent transition of seasons is always a thoughtful time for me, for many of us. Here’s how I was thinking about it a few years ago. Squirrels are comforted by birds\u2019 easy chit-chat, new […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36765"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39487,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36765\/revisions\/39487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":29530,"date":"2026-08-28T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loz.zmk.mybluehost.me\/?p=29530"},"modified":"2026-08-28T07:09:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T11:09:29","slug":"fear-of-mountain-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/28\/fear-of-mountain-lions\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear of Mountain Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This post came out a few years ago exploring anxiety and big, wild cats. At that point, there had been no deaths this century from mountain lions in Colorado where I live. New Year’s Day this year that statistic changed when a woman was attacked while alone on a hiking trail not far from the town of Estes Park. Forensics pointed to asphyxiation, meaning the lion had her throat in its jaws and closed off her airway. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistically, one should worry far more about cows than mountain lions. Annually, domestic cows in the US kill ten to twenty people \u2014 trampled, gored, or by vehicle collisions \u2014 while around thirty human deaths have been recorded from mountain lions since widescale recording began in the 1880s.<\/em> Chances of being killed by a cat in the Americas is negligible, but clearly it’s not zero. Is it worth freaking out?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My wife pieced together a kill in our driveway, sending me pictures of deer tracks posed in a casual walk followed by a sprawl, deer fur in the snow, and faint signs of melt, a couple hours old at most. The next picture was of cat tracks the size of an adult human palm, a good sized mountain lion dragging the deer. A path like that of a saucer sled was left down the drive where the mountain lion gripped the deer\u2019s throat in its teeth and pulled it a couple hundred feet to the canyon\u2019s edge below our house. My wife took pictures and video all the way, and where it hauled the body over the snowy rimrock, her text said she stopped following it. If she were with me she might, but alone no way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, we laid together in bed in the flicker-light of a fire and she recounted finding fresh tracks and studying the kill pattern. The deer, she said, were coming through together, a line of them, no sign of scatter before the attack, so it was swift, not a chase. The kill, she said, struck her as quick, quiet, dutiful, and done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It happened right behind the house, between the firewood and solar panels, which gives a person pause going out for wood or clearing snow from the panels. We see plenty of cat tracks around here, benches of rimrock in a high desert pi\u00f1on-juniper biome, perfect place for travel and ambush. In winter they follow deer like sharks trailing a shoal. When deer tracks are around, there will be mountain lions. The rest of the time, snow is mostly blank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lately, we\u2019ve been seeing lots of deer tracks and a fresher mountain lion moving through. I go out for wood not afraid so much as aware. I don\u2019t often worry about being attacked. When deer and elk populations dwindle in mountain lion terrain, they tend go down in size, targeting porcupines and house cats. Attacks on humans are rare. Where we live, deer and elk are plenty and lion health is generally good, making a physical confrontation with humans less likely. Bad encounters tend to come from starving or curious juveniles or elders barely holding onto their teeth, not a cat that takes down a full-grown mule deer in a single pounce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In a popular outdoor magazine, I recently saw the headline, Why You Shouldn\u2019t Be Afraid of Mountain Lions<\/a>. The article is accurate and well-written, but the title rubbed me wrong. Fear is not an irrational reaction to a predator that has the ability to kill and eat you, though the chances are low of it actually happening. Since 1890, there have been 27 documented humans killed by mountain lions in North America. Cows, by comparison, kill about 20 people each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You should be afraid of mountain lions, just not all the time. Wait for the tingle on the back of the neck, a sense that you\u2019re being watched. It feels like being touched by the tip of a feather. Or it might be a small bell ringing deep inside your head. It’s called being aware, and it can feel like fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I read the magazine piece, I agreed with its sentiment, you shouldn\u2019t walk around biting your nails thinking the next thing you\u2019ll feel is the weight of a mountain lion and its claws. That\u2019s no way to be. We are not a targeted prey species for a predator that kills namely deer and elk, a co-evolved design of feline and ungulate like a hand in a glove. We are more like a hand in a shoe. For mountain lions we may seem like fleshy beasts with loose and buttoned hides, known to be dangerous and unpredictable. Our meat must taste like bubble gum or gasoline, our skin freakishly hairless, like fish that walk on land. This is a reason not to fear mountain lions. They fear us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend who raises sheep in southwest Colorado keeps a radio in the barn playing talk radio all night and he swears it keeps the mountain lions away. The sound of the human voice is a trigger. A 2017 study out of University of California at Santa Cruz<\/a> played either the sound of frogs near mountain lion kills or the sound of human voices. Researchers found that the cats “fled more frequently, took longer to return, and reduced their overall feeding time by more than half in response to hearing the human \u2018super predator\u2019.” This term, super predator, is laid on us because we kill terrestrial carnivores at nine times the rate of their natural predators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In about any room from South Dakota to California I could ask who has seen a mountain lion, and a small number of hands would go up. Asked if anyone has been watched by a mountain lion, every hand should be in the air. This could be the case even in Wisconsin or Florida, and the way Puma concolor <\/em>is in motion these days, showing up in former habitats along the Eastern Seaboard, there will be more and more hands. The tickle on the back of your neck is called awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fear leans into aversion, anxiety, and dread. The trick with mountain lions is to lean the other way, more toward the awe side of the spectrum, at least the side that opens your eyes and turns up the senses. The tingle you feel on the back of your neck may not be a mountain lion watching you, but the lay of the ground you\u2019ve walked into. Shadows and hiding places reveal ambush terrain where a good idea in general is to keep yourself alert. If that\u2019s what fear does, it\u2019s done its job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


Photo by Craig Childs<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post came out a few years ago exploring anxiety and big, wild cats. At that point, there had been no deaths this century from mountain lions in Colorado where I live. New Year’s Day this year that statistic changed when a woman was attacked while alone on a hiking trail not far from the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3278,2350,1335,3142,26,155,1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals-2","category-behavior-2","category-commentary","category-craig","category-curiosities","category-earth","category-uncategorized","category-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29530"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38972,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29530\/revisions\/38972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39457,"date":"2026-08-26T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39457"},"modified":"2026-08-26T18:05:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T22:05:46","slug":"can-a-jumping-spider-be-innovative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/26\/can-a-jumping-spider-be-innovative\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Jumping Spiders Capable of Innovation?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"
Betsy Mason<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Innovation is one of those abilities we used to think only humans possessed. But you\u2019ve probably heard about the creative problem solving of New Caledonian crows who are able to build tools by bedding wires to fish food out of holes. Captive orcas have been observed chewing up the dead fish they are fed and spitting them onto the surface of their pools to attract gulls that they then prey on. And elephants are known to pile logs onto electric fences to create a safe crossing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most animals that are widely considered capable of innovation are mammals and birds, and scientists point to three things these these species have that are likely prerequisites for this ability: big brains, long lifespans, and complex social lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spiders, on the other hand, are tiny, short-lived, and mostly solitary. They seem like unlikely innovators, but a new study suggests we may have underestimated spiders\u2019 cognitive capabilities. Again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It may be hard to believe that a spider could be capable of innovation, but as I reported for Knowable Magazine<\/em>, jumping spiders have already been shown to have several other surprising capabilities<\/a>, including counting, learning, and planning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Toxeus maxillosus<\/em> (previously Toxeus magnus)<\/em> is a Southeast Asian jumping spider that is among the few hundred spider species (out of more than 50,000) that mimic the appearance and behavior of ants as a strategy to avoid predators (ants are often avoided because they fight back and taste bad), or in order to prey on the ants they resemble. @jairaiki \/ iNaturalist<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The spider in the new study is Toxeus<\/em> maxillosus<\/em>, a Southeast Asian ant-mimicking jumping spider that measures just 6.5 millimeters in length, weighs in at .025 grams, and lives an average of 10 months. But T. maxillo<\/em>sus is one of the very rare species of spiders that are at least somewhat social. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous research showed that females care for their offspring in the nest until they become subadults, and they are the only spider known to provide their young with \u201cmilk,\u201d<\/a> caring for spiderlings in the nest for up to 38 days \u2014 even though the they are capable of hunting on their own after 20 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lead author of that study, Zhanqi Chen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Yunnan, is the senior author of the new paper on spider innovation<\/a> in press at Zoological Research<\/em>. Chen\u2019s team tested the nest building capabilities of lab-raised female T. maxillosus<\/em> spiders under various challenging conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first experiment, spiders who had just been impregnated were put into a transparent dome with a tray of water covered with gauze on the bottom. These spiders like to tuck nests into dry, protected corners, so this situation was far from ideal. Still, all but two of the 38 spiders tested built nests, and in a way the scientists had not previously seen: They stretched silk lines across an area of the dome to create a flat layer and then built the nest in the space between the silk layer and the curved ceiling. A pretty neat trick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Wang et al. 2026 Zoological Research<\/em><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

But what\u2019s more interesting is that compared to spiders who were allowed to build in a square box, the spiders in the dome took twice as long to size up the situation before they started building \u2014 an average of nearly 19 hours, with some taking nearly 36 hours. After that period, the spiders abruptly began building the nest, working furiously without stopping until it was finished (which took an average of 30 hours, three times longer than in the square box). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis extended delay, followed by an abrupt, continuous bout of silk deposition, is consistent with prolonged spatial assessment and prospective planning prior to an insight-like resolution,\u201d the authors write. In other words, the spiders had something like an aha moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second experiment was even more impressive. This time, the scientists suspended a piece of sponge by a string attached to the dome, a version of a classic experiment used to test different species (mostly mammals and birds) for various abilities, including planning and insight. The scientists wanted to see if the spiders could figure out how to use the sponge to create a space for nest building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Wang et al. 2026 Zoological Research<\/em><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Of the 33 spiders in this experiment, two didn\u2019t build nests and 15 built nests without using the sponge. But the rest incorporated the vertically hanging sponge in various creative ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Some attached silk to the sponge and lifted it 1.5 centimeters until there was a half-centimeter space between the top edge of the sponge and the dome ceiling, and then built a nest in the gap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Some lifted the sponge and attached it vertically to the ceiling with silk and then built their nest in the corner that was created. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Some pulled the sponge into a horizontal position, creating a flat surface similar to the silk floors constructed in the previous experiment, and then built their nest between the sponge and the dome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 And some attached the sponge vertically, half rolled the sponge lengthwise to create a vertical cylinder that they then closed up with silk and built a nest inside!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the 2003 textbook Animal Innovation<\/em>, there are four key components required for an animal\u2019s behavior to be deemed innovative: flexible behavior, insight, planning, and multi-step problem solving. I think these spiders clearly checked all four boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Innovation is one of those abilities we used to think only humans possessed. But you\u2019ve probably heard about the creative problem solving of New Caledonian crows who are able to build tools by bedding wires to fish food out of holes. Captive orcas have been observed chewing up the dead fish they are fed and […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3278,2350,5754,5805,237],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals-2","category-behavior-2","category-betsy","category-jumping-spiders","category-mind-and-brain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39457"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39482,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39457\/revisions\/39482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39437,"date":"2026-08-24T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39437"},"modified":"2026-08-18T11:31:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T15:31:02","slug":"baltimore-in-august-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/24\/baltimore-in-august-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltimore in August"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Baltimore in August: I was out on my early-morning walk, I don’t even know the temperature or humidity or feels-like combination, I’ve given up caring but all numbers were high, and I ran into a neighbor going the same way so we walked together for a bit. We were neither one of us built for physical movement in this weather and we were both panting. <\/em>Neighbor, lying through his teeth: Nice that it’s getting cooler out every day. Me, also lying: Summer’s winding down. You do what you must to get through it. I’m apparently running this post every August because, as I said, given up — August 17, 2022; August 23, 2024; August 20, 2025; and today<\/em> — because as I also said, you do what you must to get through it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have nothing good to say about Baltimore in August. Ok, the farmers\u2019 market is moving into high season, peaches & tomatoes, also okra \u2014 that\u2019s good. Digression: I spent childhood on a small farm in the midwest making internal proclamations and declarations about freezing corn and canning applesauce in a hot kitchen, like, if I ever get outa here I\u2019m never doing this again, not me. Until decades later, I ran into the irrevocable fact that peaches and tomatoes have a few-weeks\u2019 season and the rest of the year aren\u2019t worth eating, so now I\u2019m freezing peach crisp and tomato sauce and apologizing to the sweaty irritated young Ann. Anyway, I think that\u2019s it for anything good about Baltimore in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sun is out, temperatures are in the 90s and dew points are in the 70s, dew points<\/a> being the temperature at which water condenses out of the air so that was 20 degrees ago \u2014 meaning that gills would have been the better evolutionary option here because the air is 52.76% water. At these dew points, the air is holding all the water it can so you can\u2019t cool by sweating; these dew points<\/a>, says our beloved Capital Weather Gang<\/a>, are not just oppressive but offensive and \u201cvery gross.\u201d Digression: I asked a neighbor who was a public health scientist just back from equatorial Africa what it was like there and she said, \u201cAbout like here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nights might get down to the upper 70s, same dew points; another neighbor had a friend visiting from California ask when the evening would cool off, and the neighbor just snorted. Digression: once I asked my gyn when I was going to stop having hot flashes and she too just snorted. So anyhow, that\u2019s the Baltimore days and nights.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The afternoons, however, are terrifying, due to a hair-raising alliance between physics and chemistry. More heat means more action in the air and less density, meaning as we all know, that hot air rises. More water \u2014 for chemistry reasons having to do with molecular weight that I don\u2019t understand \u2014 also means less density, also rising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So whooop, up she goes, wet hot air, rising rising, juicing up the atmosphere, and the more juice, the more convective instability \u2014 digression: I read that phrase first as \u201ccollective instability\u201d which, yes, we are, aren\u2019t we \u2014 which is measured as CAPE<\/a>, Convective Available Potential Energy, the operative words being \u201cpotential energy.\u201d Because that wet hot air rises up into the high atmosphere where it\u2019s cooler, then condenses and carries all that juicy potential energy into thunderheads which grow crazy big, bigger every minute, blooming over the city like an alien invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And inside those thunderheads, all the molecules and things get charged<\/a> and the electric fields get more intense and the energy that\u2019s been potential now just lets loose, the fields discharge <\/a>and become lightning<\/a>, also in a way I don\u2019t understand but neither do scientists. Lightning heats the air to 55,000 degrees until the air explodes into thunder, and the closer in time the lightning is to the thunder, the more it seems personal. Digression: a neighbor and I were on his porch, the neighbor holding his cat, and a simultaneous lightning\/thunder hit, CRACK BAM<\/em>, and the cat exploded like thunder out of my neighbor\u2019s hands, and the rest of my life I\u2019ll remember that cat, feet outstretched, hanging like a bat in the air above us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, afternoons in Baltimore: watchful anxiety, the thunderheads get bigger, the chances of storms go up and up until finally and with some probability all hell breaks loose, physics and chemistry unconstrained by human convenience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windows rattle, transformers blow up, trees crash down, the power goes out \u2014 recently for days \u2014 and so does the AC, and you sit there in the dark in a puddle of your own sweat if you can even sweat. Streets flood, and the Capital Weather Gang repeatedly posts TURN AROUND DON\u2019T DROWN; flights are delayed, then cancelled, then you can\u2019t get home until the afternoon of next Thursday when thunderstorms will again be likely \u2014 these weather patterns are stable \u2014 and flights will be cancelled again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best you can say about Baltimore is that it\u2019s not in the midwest where cells of convection become\u00a0supercells<\/a>\u00a0and your house gets blown into the next county. So I guess that\u2019s a second good thing about August in Baltimore \u2014 catastrophes here, as with so much else, are not sensational; here we have Armageddons but they’re unassuming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chuck Patch<\/a>\u00a0via Flickr Creative Commons: Baltimore\u2019s Artscape, when it\u2019s so routinely hot and\/or rainy, it\u2019s called Artscape weather.
Yianni Mathioudakis<\/a>, also Flickr Creative Commons: also Baltimore<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baltimore in August: I was out on my early-morning walk, I don’t even know the temperature or humidity or feels-like combination, I’ve given up caring but all numbers were high, and I ran into a neighbor going the same way so we walked together for a bit. We were neither one of us built for […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,4219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ann","category-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39437"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39440,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39437\/revisions\/39440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39416,"date":"2026-08-21T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39416"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T20:55:36","slug":"summer-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/21\/summer-skies\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer skies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This post originally appeared on my Substack <\/em>Terra Affirma<\/a> as a paid post. Please consider checking out my page<\/a> and subscribing if you like this work!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,3958,5352],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-nature","category-sarah","category-sarahs-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39416"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39430,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39416\/revisions\/39430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39442,"date":"2026-08-19T04:46:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39442"},"modified":"2026-08-19T04:53:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:53:03","slug":"tremors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/19\/tremors\/","title":{"rendered":"Tremors"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"
A view of the Alaska Railroad after the Great Quake of 1964. USGS photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Two days after I moved with my family to the middle of Alaska I learned about the earthquakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every 15 minutes or so, monitoring stations in the state detect one. Most aren\u2019t large, or even felt far beyond their epicenters. Some begin far out to sea and appear as barely more than a tiny spike on a graph somewhere. Often they occur in the southeast, hundreds of miles from the small town near Fairbanks where we now live. In a very active period, tens of thousands of quakes may register, and in 2018\u2014a banner year\u2014the Alaska Earthquake Center recorded 54,000. Two days ago, on August 17, the day before my sons started classes at their new school, there were at least 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this seismic action is generated by subduction, the process by which one of the earth\u2019s massive crust plates slowly slips beneath another. In Alaska\u2019s case, it’s the Pacific Plate pushing under the North American Plate, upon which the state sits. This movement isn\u2019t smooth but stubborn and sticky, calling to mind\u2014on a far small scale\u2014the frustration of trying to force open a swollen old window frame. Tension builds along the zone where the two plates meet, and when this pent-up energy is released it pulses through the earth, sometimes close to the surface but often miles deep, where the resulting shock may be less than obvious, or even go unnoticed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Alaska, several of this week\u2019s quakes were detected more than 50 miles down, within the region of relatively solid rock called the mantle. Many others were triggered much nearer to daylight. The one I’m thinking of happened just 3 miles below the surface, and less than 10 miles from my house.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the quake struck, the five of us had just returned from an ice cream social at my sons\u2019 school. This visit, on the evening before their first day, had caused tremors of its own, and brought home to the kids what was really happening\u2014which is to say they finally understood that we were not going back to Brooklyn. Here were their smiling teachers, their classrooms clean and bright with posters, pictures, and maps. Here were their names, written on cards at the tops of their desks. And crowds of other students, too, most of them striding down the hallways with the confidence of those who\u2019d returned, not the hesitant shuffle of us newbies. At a certain point my middle kid turned to me and said with an adult\u2019s firmness, I am not coming here tomorrow.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were the waves in which my partner and I were adrift at about around 6 p.m. We were kneeling on the floor, dividing up packs of crayons and colored pencils, erasers and scissors and boxes of Kleenex?\u2014all the stuff you need these days for a successful elementary school education. The middle kid stomped toward the stairs of our rented house. You could feel him coming, feel his mood riding through the floor, shaking the joists. I looked at our neat little piles and worried. But he ignored them and growled I\u2019m not going<\/em>. Then he ran into the family room, and the rumble faded into thick carpet pile, the kind laid down against long, cold winters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt for him. A few months earlier he\u2019d been a pre-K kid in the New York public school system. Zohran Mamdani was his mayor, the Knicks were his team. He\u2019d been loved. Embraced. That was bedrock. Now he knew not a single classmate and found himself surrounded by more trees than he\u2019d ever seen in his life. Where were the buildings, the pigeons, the sirens? Where were his friends? Why was no one walking anywhere? Why had we done this<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere below us the earthquake passed. We didn’t notice. The world was already spinning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real power of an earthquake is measured in magnitude. The higher the magnitude, the stronger the quake, though strength doesn\u2019t necessarily equal destructive power. In 1964, the Great Alaska earthquake registered a magnitude of 9.2. It shook the ground for nearly five minutes and generated an enormous tsunami, which killed more than 100 people. The quake\u2019s energy then rattled onward, through the crust and around the world, raising waves and sinking small boats as far away as Louisiana. There has never yet been a quake so powerful, though we\u2019ve seen many deadlier, including ones earlier this year in Colombia and Venezuela. By way of comparison, the Great T\u014dhoku earthquake of 2011 struck Japan with a magnitude of 9.1. Collapsing buildings and the following tsunami killed some 15,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earthquake that happened near our house was a baby, registering at 0.7 magnitude. Not long after it ended the Alaska Earthquake Center posted a few details about the event. Nothing much more than depth, location, time. I noticed, near the center of the page, a prominent clickable button. It read, Did You Feel It?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then the kids were in bed and the day was done, though the aftershocks of our evening were still rolling in, shaking our home and our hearts. For a moment I let the mouse hover over the button, then I swiped it away<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This post marks my one-year anniversary as a member of the LWON crew, and it\u2019ll be my last post, at least for the time being. For the next few years I\u2019ll be teaching journalism at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, and most of my free time will be aimed at this work. I hope to return one day, and in the meantime I\u2019ll be keeping up with the stories my wonderful colleagues post here. Thank you for reading, for being here!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days after I moved with my family to the middle of Alaska I learned about the earthquakes. Every 15 minutes or so, monitoring stations in the state detect one. Most aren\u2019t large, or even felt far beyond their epicenters. Some begin far out to sea and appear as barely more than a tiny spike […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155,5204,1,5758],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-earth","category-geology","category-uncategorized","category-neil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39442"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39453,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39442\/revisions\/39453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39433,"date":"2026-08-17T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39433"},"modified":"2026-08-16T21:33:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T01:33:53","slug":"debunking-hollywood-human-hibernation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/17\/debunking-hollywood-human-hibernation\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking Hollywood: Human Hibernation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Debunking Hollywood is LWON\u2019s very occasional series that\u00a0takes a hard science look at common TV and movie tropes.\u00a0This instalment originally appeared in August 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing says interstellar travel like a hibernation pod. The heroes of the 2016 holiday blockbuster Passengers<\/em>, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, embark on a century-long journey to an planet outside our solar system. Hibernation pods extend their lifespans for the long trip, but they wake from torpor 90 years earlier than scheduled. Then they set about trying to fix the ship and trying to put themselves back to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, let\u2019s talk about this \u2018waking\u2019 from hibernation business. Hibernation may involve lying down with ones eyes closed, but there\u2019s no sleeping going on; In fact, a long stretch of it leaves the body sleep deprived. If this movie were true to life, the first thing that would happen when Jennifer Lawrence opened her long-lashed eyes in the hibernation pod would not be her listening to the ship computer\u2019s crew update. It would be her closing those long lashes again and descending straight into sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because sleep is one of the bodily functions that can\u2019t be done properly in hibernation. During the periodic arousal states that punctuate hibernation, animals warm their bodies and go straight into a long, deep sleep. Oxford neuroscientist Vlad Vyazovskiy did his master\u2019s work at the Institute of Cryobiology at Kharkov University in Ukraine, where he studied ground squirrels in torpor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOriginally hibernation was considered a continuation of sleep, but physiologically it is very different because your metabolism is totally suspended, although it is still regulated,\u201d says Vyazovskiy. \u201cTorpor, this extreme metabolic challenge, seems to do something to the brain or body which necessitates sleep, which in turn provides some type of restoration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suspended animation in deep space flight has been a movie trope since the dawn of science fiction, and for just as long Nasa has been working to make it real. John Bradford of SpaceWorks Enterprises has been contracted by Nasa to develop just such a technology. Inspired by the unique physiologies of animal hibernators, he is working on overriding the body\u2019s steady 37\u2022C core temperature in a technique called Targeted Temperature Management. Metabolism slows by about seven percent for every degree of cooling. Though uncontrolled hypothermia can be fatal, a constant 32\u2022 body temperature still allows for normal nerve functions that are critical for breathing and heart beats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHumans can\u2019t hibernate, but we can mimic how animals hibernate,\u201d he says. \u201cEarlier in our evolutionary history we did hibernate, but now it\u2019s turned off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did I mention he\u2019s an engineer? Am I the only one who gets worried when engineers are hired to do doctorish things? For one thing, in true hibernators, platelets and white blood cells are sequestered in lymph nodes away from the blood vessels during dormancy. This prevents the blood clots that can form with inactivity and avoids the inflammation that causes kidney damage upon rewarming. There will be a lot of research necessary before humans can safely hit the pause button on their metabolisms. Luckily, Bradford hasn\u2019t been permitted any real live human subjects yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then again, doctors have been pursuing this capability for years in the field of emergency medicine. When a severely injured patient arrives at a hospital, minutes count. A rapid cooling of the body saves tissues that are cut off from blood supply\u2014a slower metabolism consumes less oxygen\u2014so cooling patients for surgery is now a routine procedure. A low dose of narcotics prevents the patient from shivering to warm themselves up. In China, experiments with therapeutic hypothermia put patients into a deep chill for up to two weeks before successfully reviving them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really would be great if we could make it happen. The advantages of crew hibernation could mean the difference between a successful Mars colonization and an Earth-bound humanity. Mars is only six months\u2019 journey from Earth, so life extension is not the primary issue at play, but hibernation pods would cut down the required habitat size and food needs. They could even provide solutions to some of spaceflight\u2019s most longstanding health issues. Spinal fluid rising into the skull in low gravity causes pressure that diminishes most astronauts\u2019 eyesight in flight, but the hibernation state should help to clear up that issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When humans live without the strain of gravity, muscle atrophy and bone loss also become a problem. Those on the International Space Station have to put in two full hours of exercise per day just to maintain their skeletons. But with hibernation, muscles and bone can be maintained using neuromuscular stimulation, which is unpleasant while conscious but not an issue for a deep-sleeping crew member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can exercise you all day long!\u201d says Bradford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cancer risk from the accumulated exposure to cosmic rays is Nasa\u2019s primary health concern for astronauts on long-haul space flights, and there is some debate as to whether a slowed metabolism is more vulnerable\u2014unable to fend off damage to DNA by repairing it\u2014or more immune, because errors in that repair process often trigger the tumours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In either case, hibernation may be the answer, because it restricts the astronaut\u2019s range of motion. Magnetic shielding could protect a spacecraft\u2019s inhabitants from ionizing radiation, but the shield for a whole habitat would be far too heavy to be feasible. If shields could be produced for a small cot, however, and the astronaut\u2019s prone body could be protected for the voyage within it, the shield option could be back on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the future, human hibernation could take even more radical paths. A research group supported by the US Army is experimenting with a technique that cools patients rapidly by replacing their blood with ice-cold saline solution. The total metabolic suspension leaves a body with no heartbeat, no breathing and no discernible brain activity, but when dogs have undergone the treatment, they have been successfully resuscitated after three hours in the frozen state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps those dogs will want to be the first interstellar passengers, to take them far away from a planet where their lot in life is to have their blood replaced by ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debunking Hollywood is LWON\u2019s very occasional series that\u00a0takes a hard science look at common TV and movie tropes.\u00a0This instalment originally appeared in August 2017. Nothing says interstellar travel like a hibernation pod. The heroes of the 2016 holiday blockbuster Passengers, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, embark on a century-long journey to an planet […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39435,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39433\/revisions\/39435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39407,"date":"2026-08-14T04:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T08:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39407"},"modified":"2026-08-13T09:34:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:34:54","slug":"categorically-yes-and-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/14\/categorically-yes-and-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Categorically Yes … and No"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"
Don’t I know you? (Trees in the Sierra Nevada)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Isn\u2019t it satisfying to know the names of things? I just got back from a backpacking trip to the Sierra Nevada with a bunch of geologists. I learned that those pink rocks are full of piemontite, the green mineral around it is called epidote, the gray stuff is andalusite, and those long white crystals are wollastonite. The name is just the first part, of course: The geologists could rattle off the chemical formulas and knew at what temperatures and depths the minerals formed, which tells them the history of the rocks before they were uplifted and eroded so we can poke at them today. But the first part of knowledge, for a lot of things, is identifying, categorizing, naming<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one thing I wished I\u2019d brought with me was my pocket-sized Pacific Coast tree finder (you always forget something). I last backpacked in the high Sierra in my 20s, and the trees were all familiar, but I couldn\u2019t quite recall their names, like I was attending a big-number college reunion. I could tell a juniper from a fir from a pine, and I knew that the length and number of needles in a cluster distinguishes different pine species. Recognizing that these<\/em> are like these<\/em> is one thing, but I wanted the names<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The birds were easier; I\u2019ve had more experience with them. Hello, mountain chickadees with your white eyebrows! Kraa-kraa-kraa to you, too, Clark\u2019s nutcracker. Oh, look, there\u2019s a dipper! They are basically aquatic songbirds\u2014seriously, they swim\u2014and they live in mountain rivers. You know you\u2019re in a good place if you see a dipper.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our brains are eager to categorize and name things. Psychologists call this tendency \u201cpsychological essentialism<\/a>,\u201d the idea that there are certain qualities we can use to assign things to their proper groups. It\u2019s satisfying to identify something, to figure out whether you\u2019re looking at a Carolina chickadee or a black-capped chickadee (which is harder than it sounds).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of course psychological essentialism can be pathological. Some people are way too committed to certain categories: boy\/girl, black\/white, sick\/healthy, citizen\/foreign, us\/them. They\u2019re upset when someone switches categories, refuses to be captured by one, or rejects the categorization scheme altogether. Appealing to essentialism is one way to rile up bigots and get them to vote. I\u2019m not talking about people who stumble over new pronouns; we were all taught overly categorically. But we can all learn to reject the burning bigotry of gender essentialism, the insistence that there are non-overlapping, firmly bounded groups of \u201cmale\u201d and \u201cfemale,\u201d and they get to decide who belongs in which group. Gender essentialists are wrong about a lot of things (so many things), and one of them is their appeal to biology (chromosomes are not<\/em> definitive) or nature.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature abhors a category. Plenty of animals switch sexes<\/a> or have functionally more than two<\/a>. As Agust\u00edn Fuentes points out<\/a>, the whole entire purpose of sexual reproduction is variation. The basic categorical unit of taxonomy is the species, and we don\u2019t even have a comprehensive definition of it. Ornithologists split and lump species all the time. Black-capped and Carolina chickadees hybridize<\/a>, and their offspring are perfectly fertile, thank you. Gulls hybridize in many directions (gulls really get around). It\u2019s satisfying to know the name of something, sure, but even more fascinating when something defies the limits of its name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I guess I\u2019m saying there are two categories of categories: those that are useful and those that are harmful. And categories can switch between the two depending on how we use them. It\u2019s up to us to use them correctly and protect one another from those who don\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first part of knowledge is often identifying, categorizing, and naming things. Humans are great at categorizing. But insistence on categories can be pathological, as with gender essentialism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5755],"tags":[3339,453,98,1219,2884],"class_list":["post-39407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-laura","tag-bird","tag-geology","tag-psychology","tag-taxonomy","tag-trees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39407"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39414,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39407\/revisions\/39414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39388,"date":"2026-08-12T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39388"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:12:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T16:12:24","slug":"perfect-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/12\/perfect-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfect Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We were walking past a line of shorebirds on the harbor\u2019s breakwater when my son stopped me and pointed. \u201cDoes that bird only have one leg?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About two dozen black turnstones \u2014 I didn\u2019t recognize them at the time, I had to use All About Birds later \u2014 faced into the wind, broadside to the incoming waves. One of them was standing on one leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We peered at the bird. Was that another leg tucked up against its belly? Hard to say. We studied the other birds. Most of them were standing on one leg, too. \u201cThat would be a lot of one-legged birds,\u201d we told each other. We tried balancing on one leg. \u201cSeems tiring,\u201d we agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Why do birds rest on one leg? Researchers have suggested that this balancing act might help regulate heat<\/a>. In a study of nine species, they found that birds with longer legs seem to rely on this strategy more often than birds with shorter legs, which have less leg surface area to keep warm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were many things to wonder about on our walk home on two legs. For one, when do the birds switch legs? There\u2019s a summer camp skit that starts with a line of kids sitting on a bench, each one asking the next if it\u2019s time. No, not yet, they say, one to the other, back down the line. This happens over and over, until finally a counselor walks in, checks their watch, and says that it’s time. All the kids uncross their legs and then recross them, the other way, together. \u201cDo you think they do that, like the skit?\u201d we asked each other. \u201cAll at once? Who tells them that it’s time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it\u2019s just a feeling they get. To ready ourselves for the new season of Ted Lasso, we did a marathon of the previous seasons, which seemed even better and more poignant knowing where it was all headed. One of my favorite scenes was when a group of the coaches and other AFC Richmond folks gather in Ted\u2019s office and talk about how people aren\u2019t perfect, but the world has a few perfect things<\/a>. Perfect films, perfect hair. The other side of the pillow<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the feeling of changing the leg you stand on is the same as the one when you turn to the cool side of the pillow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I get overwhelmed, I forget to turn the pillow over. My body feels like a giant lollipop on a stick \u2014 a rainbow whirl of head and face, with nothing beneath it. Or like an enormous eye that\u2019s stuck open. On other days, when we walk and the sun is low and at our backs, we make giant eyes with our shadows. Hands on head, elbows out to the side, and your head becomes the pupil and the iris, your elbows the corners of your eyes from which tears and the leftovers of sleep emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I\u2019d been looking at images of a cortical homunculus \u2014 a representation of the body drawn how the brain might \u201csee\u201d it. As illustrated in a 1937 paper in the journal Brain<\/a>, <\/em>the hands are enormous, and so are the eyes, the lips, the tongue. (I\u2019ve been married long enough that I can ask the question my husband would: don’t worry, people are working on that, too<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While more recent research has refined and complicated the picture, these areas of the body \u2014 the hands and feet, the face, lips, and tongue \u2014 take up a vast portion of the signals zipping to and from the brain. And when there are changes in the body, the brain can respond. A recent study of children<\/a> who were born with only one hand had brains that completely remapped the perception of their bodies. These new maps remained in place in adults who had spent their lives moving through the world with a single hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the walk home from the harbor, we talked more about being birds. We tried balancing on one leg again, and imagined how it might be restful, might feel warmer if the wind was blowing. I imagined the map of a black turnstone\u2019s brain and how it might know when it’s time to change. When my head grows heavy and too warm with thinking, I will try to remember the shorebirds, too, imagine that the rest of me is, like them, all wing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black turnstone at Sands Beach by Sue Cook<\/a>\/Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sensory Homunculus and Motor Homunculus sculptures at the Museum of Natural History, London, based on the cortical homunculi mapped by Dr. Wilder Penfield. Photographed by Dr. Joe Kiff<\/a>\/Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were walking past a line of shorebirds on the harbor\u2019s breakwater when my son stopped me and pointed. \u201cDoes that bird only have one leg?\u201d About two dozen black turnstones \u2014 I didn\u2019t recognize them at the time, I had to use All About Birds later \u2014 faced into the wind, broadside to the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3278,1724],"tags":[3339,722,5843,4569,248,5842],"class_list":["post-39388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals-2","category-cameron","tag-bird","tag-brain","tag-homunculus","tag-kids-in-nature","tag-neuroscience","tag-ted-lasso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39388"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39508,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39388\/revisions\/39508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":39381,"date":"2026-08-10T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/?p=39381"},"modified":"2026-08-09T21:53:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T01:53:45","slug":"happy-final-weeks-of-summer-camp-to-all-who-celebrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonnothing.com\/2026\/08\/10\/happy-final-weeks-of-summer-camp-to-all-who-celebrate\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Final Weeks of Summer Camp (to all who celebrate)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Subject: Final reminders<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Nature Wonder Wishing Family, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re so excited to have your child with us at Nature Wonder Wishing Camp next week. Please make sure that you read the parent guidebook and the camp code of conduct. You can find those documents in an email we sent six months ago that does not include the words \u2018Nature\u2019 \u2018Wonder\u2019 \u2018Wishing\u2019 or \u2018Camp\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re looking forward to a truly fantastic week with your Wishing Wonder Bug. Just a few reminders before camp begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Dropoff will be from 9:05 \u2013 9:16 in the Meadow Orchard Field next to the large oak tree. To find the oak, please park in the visitor\u2019s lot (lefthand side only), and walk around the right side of the building. There you\u2019ll see a sign for the Meadow Orchard Trail. The oak tree is just half a mile down the trail on the right.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. We\u2019re using the BrightPact app for all camper check ins and communications. Please make sure you have the app downloaded before dropoff on Monday. You should have received a login link and special access code in the email we sent in May. That email does not include the words \u2018Nature\u2019 \u2018Wonder\u2019 \u2018Wishing\u2019 or \u2018Camp,\u2019 nor does it include the word \u2018BrightPact.\u2019 You will need the app, the access code, and a photo ID to check your camper in or out.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. All campers should arrive with sunscreen (mineral only) and bug spray applied. Please also send bug spray and sunscreen with your camper. Containers should be no more than 6 ounces, and clearly labeled with your camper\u2019s first and last name, and their Wishing Wonder Bug group name (eg. Squirrels, Rabbits, Praying Mantises).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. We\u2019ll be primarily outdoors this week, so please send two sets of extra clothing, an extra pair of sneakers, water shoes, rain boots, a rain jacket, a swimming suit, a life vest, two towels, mosquito netting, and a dry bag for wet or muddy clothing. Everything should be labeled with your camper\u2019s first and last name. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. We want our campers to have lots of energy for exploring this week, so please be sure you pack a nutrient-dense lunch that does not include nuts, candy, white bread, processed food, pudding, or chips. Nature Wonder Wishing Camp prides itself on being a vegan space, but we understand that not all campers have the same dietary needs. If you need to send cheese, please make sure it is goat cheese. All non-vegan foods should be labeled with their ingredients. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. All campers must have fully completed paperwork to join their group. That includes immunization records, photo release, video release, liability waiver, complete medical history, child and caregiver information and photos, and the \u2018getting to know you\u2019 essay. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Pickup will be from 3:05-3:10 in the large vegetable garden to the northeast of the visitor\u2019s center (opposite the compost pile). Please park in the visitor center lot (righthand side) and bring a photo ID.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. We\u2019ll be working on some very special nature-inspired art this week, and we\u2019re planning to have an art show on Friday at noon so you can see what your camper has been creating. We understand that we\u2019re asking you to come in the middle of the workday three hours before pickup. But we\u2019re pretty sure your camper will be VERY disappointed if you\u2019re the only parent who doesn\u2019t show up.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Can\u2019t wait to have fun with your Wishing Wonder Bugs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Photo courtesy of Kamal Hamid via flikr<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n\n\n\n