The Last Word

By: | July 16, 2016

shutterstock_416354974July 11 – 15, 2016

Jessa updates a post about the Berger Inquiry, the time that the Canadian government actually asked the people who were here first what they wanted to do with the land that belonged to them in the first place.

Rose’s backyard in Brooklyn is full of squirrels fighting, not just the usual squabbling but full-on Fight Club, red in tooth and claw.

Your science fair project was probably something lame, like baking-powder volcanoes.  But Jenny, Jenny did a science fair project and grew bone!  She still quite proud of herself.

Billions and billions of great white sharks out there, right?  Turns out that nobody knows how many because nobody knows how to count them — except the guys in Edinburgh who count cabs.

Jenny wanted to bring a lab rabbit home and make it a pet.  She should have paid attention to Rose’s backyard because those rabbits? not pets.

 

My Science Fair Project Part II: Revenge of the Lab Rabbits

By: | July 15, 2016

shutterstock_108222992If you read my post earlier this week, you’ll know that I did this fantastic science fair project back in the 7th grade. In fact, when it comes to science, I might have peaked in middle school—which is pretty sad. But I peaked in a big way with that bone-growing experiment. Please go back and read the piece if you somehow didn’t get around to it before, though I can’t imagine how that would happen.

I ended that text with my blue ribbon, as I should have. It’s good to quit after applause and high praise. But there’s a brief second chapter to this story that I’d like to share. It’s the part where the lab rabbit gets back at me for her entire miserable existence. Continue reading →

Counting Pistachios, Taxis and Great White Sharks

By: | July 14, 2016

shutterstock_392064547In this month’s issue of National Geographic, I lay out a simple question. How many great white sharks are there on Earth?

It seems simple enough – we’ve found some 3,500 planets outside our solar system and 400,000 species of beetles on Earth. This is the modern world of crowdsourcing and big data. We can go online and learn that the black-rumped agouti has 857,000,000 neurons in its brain. How hard is it to count 18-foot fish eating giant animals that lay out on rocks all day? When I started this project I figured we had not only counted them all but named them as well.

Boy, was I in for a surprise. It turns out that we have almost no idea how many great white sharks there are on Earth. These are not agoutis – which, chances are, you had to google just now – this is the world’s most iconic sea creature. Not only is this surprising but it’s a big problem since you can’t protect a population if you don’t know how big it is. How can we tell if great whites are in trouble if we don’t know how many there are? And how can we tell if their populations are improving? From a policy perspective, no other question really matters.

That’s not to say people haven’t taken stabs at it. An alarming 2011 paper estimated the population in the notoriously sharky waters of Central California at 219. Which was shockingly low until another came out using the same data that put it north of 2,000. So I guess it depends on how you count. Which raises a really interesting question: How do you count sharks?

The answer, as you might expect, comes down to  Scottish taxicabs. That’s not a joke, I’m dead serious. If you want to understand the future of great white sharks on Earth, you must first understand the only taxi drivers on Earth who (I can only assume) all wear kilts. Continue reading →

My Science Fair Project Was Better Than Yours

By: | July 13, 2016

shutterstock_416354974I remember my 7th grade science fair project pretty clearly. You may think you aren’t interested in what it was, but you should be—because it was fabulous. It was truly unique. I didn’t grow plants under different colored lights and I didn’t build a lame volcano using paper maché and some sticky baking soda and Sprite mixture (or whatever). I’m talking actual, useful science. I’m talking intelligent and intriguing experiment with totally cool results—physical results you could hold in your hand.

For my 7th grade project, I grew bone.

Continue reading →

The Brooklyn Squirrel War of 2016

By: | July 12, 2016

1024px-Eastern_Grey_Squirrel

There is currently a war raging in my yard. For the past week a handful of squirrels (I can’t honestly say how many since I can’t tell them apart) have been fighting. And not just the regular squibble squabble squirrel fight. A full on, screaming, bloody, vicious battle.

Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | July 9, 2016

IMG_8778July 4 – 8, 2016

What do you do when, as usual in America, people get shot? Only this time you’re first on the scene? And you’re in charge? And years afterward, you still see the scene, over and over? Craig’s friend tells stories to little kids, over and over.

Michelle writes about little kids too, but these are drawing their ideas of Nature.  Their charming pictures — which you should click on so you can see the ultra-charming detail — play out the tension between civilization and Nature and we shouldn’t forget this for a minute.

Helen’s walks to work are adding up to an epic.  A milkweed patch she’d been keeping her eye on for a good year was attacked by energetic and virtuous gardeners who wanted it to be a vegetable patch.  The milkweed won.

Once again, Cassie calls bull honkey.  When she did this before, the guy was shunned for life.  This time, it’s about a TV show called Zoo and it’s such a flaming disaster that shunning would be too good for it.

Let’s say you’re preparing for a zombie or religious or social or whatever Apocalypse, and let’s say you have a pet.  What do you do? Prepare to let it die? to feed it? to eat it?  Rose interviews the most unusual people.

Preppers and Pets

By: | July 8, 2016

black dog wearing backpack

I’ve recently added a bit to my awkward beginning-of-interview spiel. I do the standard “here’s what my story is about, here’s why I wanted to talk to you” thing. But I also now usually say something like “oh, and if you hear any weird sounds, there are squirrels fighting in my back yard and my dog would really like me to let her out there to go investigate.” It’s not a lie, there has been a squirrel war raging in my yard for the past few weeks (a post for another time) but it also tends to serve as a nice ice breaker. “Oh! What kind of dog?” they often ask. I tell them, I ask if they have any pets, we banter. I hear great dog stories. Rapport is built. Then we actually start the interview. Continue reading →

The Appeal of Crackpot Television

By: | July 7, 2016

lionLast summer, my husband and I began watching what we believed to be one of the worst shows on television. The series, Zoo, is based on a novel by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Here’s the premise: The world’s animal population has turned against humanity. Lions are killing tourists, wolves are murdering prison inmates, even bats are flinging their tiny bodies against planes to bring them crashing down. An intrepid team — a zoologist, a veterinary pathologist, an intelligence analyst, a journalist, and a safari guide — must figure out why all the animals have gone crazy and how to stop them.

On Tuesday night, my husband and I were channel surfing when we stumbled across some familiar faces. “Dear god! It’s that show,” my husband said. “Zoo!” I screeched. “It’s back!” Continue reading →