This coming June 17 marks the 103rd arrival of Father’s Day. I suppose I’ve celebrated it in some form every year of my life, but I still had to look up the date to figure out when it is. Father’s day isn’t really a thing. Not the way Mother’s Day is a thing; not even […]
Thomas
Happy Birthday to us, we’ve just turned two. We’re bigger: we’ve added three new Persons of LWON. And we’ve matured, that is, we stopped looking so much at our own bellybutton and are more aware of the intelligent, thoughtful Commenters of LWON. So for our birthday celebration, we’ll look back at the year and not […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]