Clik here to view.
Guest Post: Reaffirming Reason in Chattanooga
Almost exactly a year ago, as I drove across one of the bridges that span the Tennessee River near my home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a bumper sticker “Proud of everything a liberal hates” flashed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Long Live Bears Ears
Bears Ears is one of the last places in the desert southwest where the marks left by mankind on the landscape are whisper-light. It doesn’t surprise me to hear that our President has never set foot...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mary Anning, Paleontolopeep
Once upon a time there was a fossil seller and paleontologist named Mary Anning. In the early 19th century, she and her brother found the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton. In the early 21st...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Astronomer’s Telegram Rediscovers Mars
Early on 20th March, professional theoretical cosmologist and amateur astrophotographer Peter Dunsby of the University of Cape Town was imaging a beautiful part of the sky, in the constellation of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Ballooning Spiders
My favorite walk. Of course the paragliders hid today. Most spring days on my favorite walk, I watch a small group of people wearing packs trudge up a grassy hill. Once they reach the top they spread...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Last Word
April 16-20 For much of the country, spring warmth is too long in coming this year. Much too long. But we are well past the equinox and the days are getting longer, and that means the running and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest* Post: The Scientist Who Became Obsessed with Magic Lanterns
A magic lantern slide. When Kentwood Wells was 12 years old, he and his parents stumbled across a magic lantern in an antique shop during a Maine vacation. The instrument, an old image projector that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: This Isn’t the First Time Central American Children Have Been...
On November 14, 2017, about 25 women gathered in a large white community center in Morazon, a remote district in eastern El Salvador along the country’s border with Honduras. The meeting was in second...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: The Candi Cane Cooper Caper, or, The Mathematics of Dr. Dolittle
A few weeks ago, I started a long-anticipated, summer-long camping trip, with my dog Frances, my cat Lao, and my husband John joining us part of the time. One evening, we were in our camper van in an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Forgotten Stories
Every science journalist has a mixed portfolio. Some stories go viral. Others feel as if they’re read by five people including your parents. Our pieces also have a spectrum of meaningfulness. I’ve...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Geology 101
My husband and I went to Scotland to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We walked on footpaths in the Highlands and noticed all the ways the landscape differed from our favorite hiking trails in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: The Power of Water and Its Absence
As I put today’s fifth pot of water on the stove to boil, I think about how this has become part of my daily routine. Bring 5 quarts of water to a boil, set the timer for 3 minutes, pour some in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Window Tree
All year long, I’ve been haunted by a poem. When I sit down to work or go for a walk, it drifts into my mind: Tree at my window, window tree My sash is lowered when night comes onBut let there never...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Redux Because This Is Better Than What I Was Going to Write
I had dinner the other night with, among others, a graphic designer. He said he liked looking at contemporary photographs but to be honest, he didn’t know why he liked looking at them. He knew they...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: The Baby Equinox and Charles Darwin
On this year’s summer solstice, the longest day, my daughter is about to reach her own personal equinox. She has lived outside of me for nine and a half months, almost as long as she spent swimming in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: The Non-Simplicity of Mental Illness
ONE OCTOBER DAY in the fall of my junior year of college, I found myself sitting in a chair across from a small blond woman with a look of deep concern on her face as she stared into mine. She had...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Begging Babies
Two birdfeeders hang from the deck of my house in the woods, a waystation for locals and migrants alike. They are a locus of activity — except when I forget to refill them. That happened again last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: The Weight of the Eclipse
2017 was the year of the Great American Eclipse, and I live in its path. I also write about the Earth, moon, and sun for a living. So I was determined to not only cover the eclipse, but own it. Like...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Finding My Moorings
When I was four or five years old, my parents took me on the Bluenose ferry, which traveled a narrow stretch of the Atlantic between Maine and Nova Scotia. I was enthralled at first, taking in the warm...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guest Post: Warm Feelings About the Void (A Rebuttal)
Last week Cassandra Willyard wrote that space bores her, and argued that astronomy writers need to highlight the human drama to hook her and other spacephobes. This is my response. This essay being one...
View Article