So, here’s a weird thing that happened. It began when I bought some new plants for my “garden” in Virginia. (I put “garden” in quotes because most of what grows in this spot are weeds, which I’ve taken to calling “native plants” to make myself feel less inept.) These were the kinds of plants […]
LWON happens. There’s no stopping us! Here’s what we gave our dear readers last week: Women speaking to groups get interrupted. A lot. Rose wrote up some advice on how to make sure, in a radio interview, that your girly voice is heard. Helen has seen U2 in concert 12 times, though she’s never marked […]
Last week, according to some real news, Earth got a wave hello from far away, from some-3-billion-year-old vibrations that were set off when two black holes smashed into each other. (Really? There’s not room for both of you up there?) According to the New York Times, the collision—reported by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, which felt the signal—resulted in […]
Despite the occasional tragic outcome of such encounters—and they truly are occasional relative to attacks by other wild animals—I love meeting sharks in the wild. So, dive in with me as I recall this experience with Emma the tiger shark in the Bahamas. I don’t know that she was as intrigued with me as I was […]
What a diverse week of posts! Seriously, take a peek at these: You’ll love Helen’s artistic take on a scientific meeting about immunity. She sketched her experience rather than jotting notes, and it’s pretty great. Emma introduced us to a field you’ve never heard of, taphonomy, the study of the gritty transition of a human corpse, especially the […]
In the run-up to Mothers’ Day, we at LWON honored motherhood and, in some cases, the amazing women who gave us the gift of life. (Some of us might have preferred a new bike, but we got what we got.) It all started with Michelle getting to know the Perfectionist (purposeful capital P) in her daughter, a character […]
My mother was dying. It was time to get ready. First came the visit to a funeral home where we walked among the coffins as if shopping for a new couch. Deep woods polished shiny; insides pillowed, all velvets and ruffles; pallbearer handlebars in brass or chrome. But no, too fancy, and she’d be cremated anyway, […]
Here at LWON this first week of May, we wrote about stuff. Two guests helped fill our pages. Emma Marris pondered the constraints of urban parks and their tendency to tidy nature’s wildness away. And Ramin Skibba (who wins for having the coolest name) opined about the unprecedented March for Science, wondering if it could […]