Lessons Not Learned

By: | September 5, 2014

QuillsBoxerFaceThe dog emerged from the aspen grove with straw on her face. At least, that’s what my husband Dave first thought when he saw Molly reappear on the trail he was running with a couple of friends. But it turned out that those weren’t threads of straw. They were porcupine quills, protruding from her lips and ears. Before she could object, he grabbed her and pulled the quills out. She yipped — porcupine quills have backward-pointing barbs that grab and scratch when they’re pulled out — but there weren’t too many, and he had two running companions to help restrain my naughty dog. (Dave always refers to her as my dog when she’s misbehaving, which is often).

The first porcupine encounter was unpleasant for everyone, and I hoped that it had taught Molly Dog that porcupines are not her friend, and they’re no fun to chase either. Dave wasn’t buying it. You probably already know what happened next. Continue reading →

SHE?

By: | September 3, 2014

640px-Sandboarding_in_DubaiMy first interviews for this current astronomy story were with the astronomers I’ve known and known of for decades — whose research I’ve followed, whose talks I’ve attended, whom I’ve interviewed, as I said, for decades.  The astronomers were what they have been likely to be:  men.

Astronomer:  Werk looked at other metal lines.  She found . . .

Me (thinking): She?

Another astronomer: Rudie found extended CGM around z = 2.0.  She does. . .

Me (thinking):  She?

A third astronomer:  Martin has a similar data set.  She detects . . .

Me (thinking):  She?

A fourth astronomer:  Somerville has a good overview.  She’s worked on . . .

Me (thinking):  She?

A fifth astronomer:  When Putman looks at 21-cm lines, she . . .

Me (thinking): SHE?

A sixth astronomer:  Rubin might see a hint for some.  She. . .

Me (thinking):  SHE?   

A seventh astronomer:  Peeples finds it in the CGM.  She’d know . . .

Me (light filling brain):  Is there a pattern here? Continue reading →

Two Docs Walk Into A Bar

By: | September 2, 2014

DIGITAL CAMERAThe bar in question is inside an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Wisconsin. The men are middle-aged with graying hair and glasses. But they’re both fit. They look like they might spend their spare time sailing. One wears a blue button-down shirt and jeans. The other is dressed in a polo shirt and camouflage shorts.

Button Down arrives first with a blonde woman. They grab stools, and he orders a beer. A few minutes later Camo Shorts joins the party. He clearly knows Button Down. There are some handshakes and back slaps, and then the two men start to talk shop. They’re both doctors.

I am seated next to them, and I catch snippets of their conversation. But then they start swapping stories about patients who are overweight and refuse to slim down. These patients won’t listen to their doctorly advice to cut calories no matter how many times they give it. I am a science journalist, and also very nosy. So now I am eavesdropping in earnest. Continue reading →

Sounds of Summer

By: | September 1, 2014

washington national cathedral (with earthquake damage)After my voice lesson Sunday afternoon, I heard bells. Eight bells, ringing on and on. My voice lessons are in the bowels of Washington National Cathedral – a real live Gothic cathedral, hand-carved over the last 107 years by bearded Englishmen, or at least the group included one bearded Englishman who lives in my neighborhood. The cathedral’s tallest tower holds 10 bells known as peal bells, because they’re for playing peals like this one.

Peal bells are used for mathematical playing, not melodic; as the website of the North American Guild of Change Ringers explains, a peal goes through the bells by number, switching the order each time, so a four-bell “method” – apparently the little bits of music are called “methods” – might start like this, where each number is a bell: Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | August 30, 2014

Groucho_glasses

August 25 – 29, 2014

The week began with a flight of fancy from Richard. Or was it his lived reality? Only YOU can know the truth.

If you never saw a toy robot shape-shifting into a toy vehicle, you might think a movie called Transformers was about this.

Cameron follows her nose up to the International Space Station and down into the ocean in an exploration of smell.

As Nature releases a global map of roadless areas, Michelle celebrates the role of the Wilderness Act in protecting American landscapes from the American automobile.

I recount a key episode in aboriginal history, the 1976 Berger Inquiry about a proposed Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline.

The Roads Not Traveled

By: | August 28, 2014

5989809789_6f2f87cb24_zOn September 3, the U.S. Wilderness Act turns 50 years old. The law’s call to protect places “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man” has always been poignant, and our enthusiasm for trammeling seems greater every year. So the Wilderness Act’s half-century mark has occasioned a great deal of handwringing. Does wilderness still exist in any meaningful way? Does it matter?

Yeah, it does. And yeah, of course it does.

Despite the beauty of the law’s language, the Wilderness Act wasn’t conceived by woolly-headed nature fantasists. The people who created and sold the notion of wilderness to the nation in the 1930s knew very well that, in the strictest sense, there was no such thing. Even then, before anyone had discerned the global fingerprints of PCBs or climate change, the founders of the Wilderness Society realized that most places had some history of human habitation; most places had experienced some sort of trammeling. Historian Paul Sutter writes: Continue reading →

Things that Smell

By: | August 27, 2014

640px-Phytoplankton_-_the_foundation_of_the_oceanic_food_chainMy nose has been extra-sensitive lately. I can catch dog food at a hundred paces, both the kitchen and my still-diaper-wearing kids’ bedroom feel like odor minefields, and I have to walk along the lineup of barbecues at the nearby park with my shirt over my face.

It’s a good thing I’m not an astronaut. Continue reading →

Abstruse Goose: Transformers v. 3

By: | August 26, 2014

decepticons_attackI’m pretty sure that a Transformers™ movie came out a few years back, and I’m dead certain that the neighborhood kids regularly call on me to admire their transformable Transformers™ toys.  And I think a Transformers™ movie came out just recently but I don’t know anything about it.  It’s probably all explosive and apocalyptic.  I’m too old for these things, and anyway, if you’ve ever been in the middle of an east coast voltage drop, that’s apocalypse enough for anybody

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