25- 29 November This week, we gave thanks. Ann pointed out that sexual harrassment may be a subset of a deeper inability to keep other people from suffering the consequences of your own inner demons. Kant is involved. Jessa identifies a central mechanism keeping us from flying off into virtual existences — that pesky inner […]
Month: November 2013
About a month ago, the science writing community found out that one of its leaders was sexually harassing his younger female colleagues. The young women, especially those looking for networks and jobs, took to the internet and named him in front of his own community. The internet got its shorts in an uproar which eventually focused on […]
An estimated 73 percent of the People of LWON will be in a country that celebrates Thanksgiving today, and the remaining 27 percent are good-natured sorts, so we decided to dedicate today’s post to giving thanks. We’re writing about what we’re thankful for—and what gratitude says about us, about life on earth, about what we […]
If anything bolsters our instinctive revulsion to game-changing technology, it’s that so much of it makes us physically queasy. Much of our experienced technology involves sensory conflicts that inadvertently activate an ancient digestive reflex. Since the first mariner failed to find his sea legs, the story of human limit-pushing has been one big barf-fest. There’s […]
The news this past week that the IceCube Neutrino Observatory has fulfilled its mission by detecting neutrinos originating beyond the solar system reminds me of a story I once heard. I can’t reveal the source, though not out of a sense of journalistic responsibility. If anything, my discretion is due to journalistic irresponsibility: I don’t remember […]
This post originally appeared back in February 2011. If you’ve already read it, we apologize. Cassie is frantically packing in preparation for a cross-country move. January 3rd was a bad day for Cee. That morning she had a colonoscopy. The procedure went smoothly. But afterward, Cee felt ill. Something wasn’t right. She had a bite […]
November 18 – 22 Fairy tales have origins and evolutions, says Cameron, and were told so they’d produce “shock effects so powerful that to this day we feel compelled to talk about them, reinvent them and pass them on.” Helen goes to the zoo to see the tiger babies — “crashing and pouncing and falling off […]
Two decades of rock climbing and a career in writing have left me with two distinct things. One, an ability to step back from the world and make a careful assessment. A zen approach, if you will, to risk and making my way in this world. The second is a seriously messed up pair of […]
