This post originally appeared November 28, 2016. I have a tendency to worry. When I’m stressed, I can worry pretty much any time of day, but my brain’s favorite time to worry is in the middle of the night. At 3 a.m., there is no problem that can’t be mulled over, chewed on, and puffed […]
When the old mammal hall closed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, it was the end of an era at the museum. The museum’s mammal dioramas were of the old school, displaying the stuffed mammals in their environments. They were in a dark, low-ceilinged part of the museum, and I almost always walked […]
Recently I visited Japan for the first time in more than 16 years. I lived in the southwestern city of Kumamoto from 1998 to 2000, and other than a visit in December of 2002, I’d never been back. So, on April 16, there I was, finally back in Japan, and I was happy. So happy. […]
This post originally appeared March 10, 2017. Enjoy! In the summer of 2011, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History was in the process of doing some bug relocation. Specifically, they were moving some of their beetles from the museum building downtown out to a storage facility in the suburbs—specifically, the non-plant-eating scarabs. It was […]
Ten years ago this week I bought one of my most beloved articles of clothing: A gray hooded sweatshirt. A heavy one, mostly cotton, with “Alaska Ship Supply” on the front. In April 2009 I lived on board the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, and, for the first few days of the month, it was […]
This post originally appeared on April 7, 2017. It’s always a good time to talk about whales and Peeps dioramas. I have a bit of a thing about whales. The shelf above my desk at home is full of whale art, and a National Geographic whale poster hangs in a frame above that. Along with […]
Yesterday I was thinking about how much I love the central dogma of molecular biology. “Central dogma” is a funny name for it. It sounds like it has something to do with religion, but it’s not; it’s just the thing that makes all living cells work. A cell has DNA; that DNA has a code, […]
I got my primary tip on writing postcards from Garrison Keillor, an essay of his I read at least a decade and a half ago: Don’t try to write a letter. (This was in an era when many people, including me, still wrote letters.) Write a little scene. Paint a word picture for the recipient. […]