Where do you fall on the issue of wind farms at sea? Tidal energy generators? Artificial reefs? Mooring fields? Glass bottles? Old piers? Shipwrecks? Are they junk to be cleared away or are they habitat to be protected? How are they to be categorized, and at what stage in their “useful” lives do they become […]
Month: September 2014
The jungles of the Peten are hot and sweaty. Most of the best places for archeology are. Field seasons are especially hot, since they are always during the driest time of year so that the site doesn’t get flooded. Howler monkeys boom from the parched trees, which barely twitch during the windless days. Meanwhile, pasty grad […]
This was first published in Dec 6, 2011 — it was originally a guest post, Cameron wasn’t yet an LWONer — and was honorable-mentioned for the American Institute of Physics’ 2012 science writing prize in the New Media category. Her mom sounds like a doll. I’m not sure exactly where this story begins, but maybe it’s […]
September 1-5, 2014. This week, Helen discovered a late summer symphony of peal bells and cicadas. Listen! Ann discovered an unexpected but welcome pattern in the pronouns that the astronomers are using to describe their colleagues — “she.” Richard introduced a new occasional LWON series — the Bad Science Poet. (Motto: “It’s not the science that’s bad—it’s […]
The 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 […]
My 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 […]
The 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 […]
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. […]
