April 15-19 Can a country have post-traumatic stress disorder? This week, guest poster Amy Maxmen reported back from two weeks in Sierra Leone, where survivors and perpetrators eke out an uneasy truce after a ten year war. Cassie realised in the aftermath of the Boston bombings that no matter how fast Twitter and CNN can […]
Month: April 2013
#1. Couldn’t you use post-menopausal hot flashes to warm up cold people? Hot flashes are better warm-uppers than, say, heaters because they happen from the inside. Something in you lights up and you become radioactive; you glow, you emit. I won’t tell you why I was thinking about that because some of you get snide. […]
A few years ago, my neighbor in Colorado decided to learn something about animal rights. I thought this was a pretty interesting project under any circumstances, but it was especially interesting because my neighbor is Michael Soule, the biologist credited with founding the field of conservation biology. Like a lot of conservation-minded scientists, Michael was […]
On September 11, 2001, I was visiting a teacher in a one-room school in Kikijana, Bolivia, a tiny community nestled high in the mountains. After school let out, the teacher switched on a battery-operated radio. The broadcast was in Quechua, a language I don’t really speak, so I tuned out. But the teacher was listening. […]
An important decision faces Oregon’s lawmakers this week. It concerns a $2.4 billion industry, an organism that’s important in genetics and other research, and a ritual that boosts the happiness of the multitudes, starting around 5 o’clock in the afternoon. I know, I know. I could have just said that Oregon is considering making brewer’s […]
Last November, I spent the hottest hours of a West African afternoon camped outside Tamba Aruna’s office. He’s a slight, soft-spoken man who listens to the sorrows of others each day. His job – mental health supervisor at the emergency clinic operated by Doctors without Borders (or MSF) in Sierra Leone – makes Aruna a […]
8 – 12 April This week, Richard marveled at the quantum carnival that rages in the decimal points. You might have heard that birds and wind power don’t mix. Erik brings home the heartbreaking reality — and shows that there might be a solution. Erika explains why you don’t want any austerity cuts in the […]
The emergence of the H7N9 bird flu virus has rekindled memories of our last flu pandemic – just as the United States is debating whether it can afford to prepare for the next one. Remember the H1N1 flu scare of 2009? I always will, because pregnant women were vulnerable to becoming severely ill or dying […]
