Climate change may not be forever, but it’ll be for a long, long time. Who—or what—will be around thousands or millions of years hence, when the consequences of our casually massive carbon emissions are still playing out? And do we owe them anything? According to philospher William Grove-Fanning, currently at the Environmental Studies Program at […]
Month: December 2012
“Hey Hayden, can you say caption?” Those five words haunt me still, more than a dozen years after I first heard them. The set up: an article I’d been working on about wooly mammoths had, in the course of a week, been incrementally demoted from a full page down to – no joke – a […]
Some sad-yet-happy news: I’m leaving the people of LWON. Next week I’m launching my own blog at a new network hosted by National Geographic. I’ll be sharing a web neighborhood with some amazing writers (and they’ll post their own announcements soon). My blog, called Only Human, will be all about people — our genes, cells, brains, behaviors, […]
Thanks to HBO’s Game of Thrones, I’ve become engrossed by George R. R. Martin’s remarkable setting that sometimes feels more like medieval historical fiction than fantasy. It’s the first time I’ve admired a fantasy setting in years. Its gray-shaded characters and the complex society of Westeros, where most of the story takes place, brings a relatable […]
For your Sunday-reading pleasure, a few stories that the people of LWON loved this week. In no particular order: Ann: Who knew about radiation sickness, and when?, by Alex Wellerstein, Restricted Data Some Manhattan Project physicists did know what radiation from atom bombs would do to people. Robert Oppenheimer wasn’t much interested. Bonus: Emma Marris has a really charming […]
3 – 7 December 2012 This week, Richard Branson’s spaceflight-for-megabucks scheme might be the trending, but Heather is far more interested in the intriguing history of the Zambian space academy. It’s a great post – not least because of the utterly hypnotic video – but can I get a show of hands for anyone who […]
The death of Neil Armstrong in August prompted no end of tributes invoking heroism, patriotism, vision, courage, valor, and all sorts of other abstractions. Understandably so. Armstrong’s giant leap was in fact the first baby step in one species’ attempt to leave home. Less in the news, though, was a more concrete matter: hard science. The […]
In 1850, British Captain Robert McClure and his crew ventured in the Investigator to the Arctic, with a walrus-shaped figurehead leading the way in search of the lost Franklin expedition. Unlike ill-fated Franklin, McClure employed an Inuit translator and was able to engage meaningfully with coastal communities along the Arctic Ocean. The team found and […]
