The Last Word

October 3-7, 2016 This week we rounded up a number of posts about bugs and how we love them. I think it says quite a lot about us that we didn’t even come close to exhausting our supply of bug-love posts. Sarah attempted to find things to appreciate about ticks, like the cute way they […]

The Patter of Little Feet

It is the size of a child, pelting through the forest with great dexterity. Quadrupedal but galloping with synchronized fore and hind steps. My concern is not this gentle, slender creature — whose mass, velocity, volume and weight distribution are crystal clear in my mind — but rather the imagined force or creature that set […]

Rosetta and Philae: Plucky siblings for life

On September 30, the Rosetta orbiter will make a controlled collision with Comet 67P/C-G. It is not designed for landing, so this is the last we will hear from it. This date also marks an end to a happy period for my family that started in 2013 when my son was just four years old […]

People being wrong on the Internet

On August 12th, a story entitled “The Death of the Bering Strait Theory” opened thus: “Two new studies have now, finally, put an end to the long-held theory that the Americas were populated by ancient peoples who walked across the Bering Strait land-bridge from Asia approximately 15,000 years ago.” The History Channel posted along the same lines: […]

The Last Word

This week was summer-themed and — with one fresh exception from Judith Mernit — recycled, in the most exciting sense of the word. This allowed us all to actually experience summer, in order to have more stories to share with you, dear Reader. In the summer of 2010, Heather spent eight-hour hiking days in the […]

Redux: How I Spent My Summer Vacation (Winter Edition)

This week as summer hits its balmy peak, we look back at LWON posts from summers gone by. Five years ago, Richard spent his summer vacation in Chile’s winter, getting to know the astronomers and donkeys of the Chilean mountainside. It’s classic Richard, basically, and the delight is in the details. Here it is.  

The Last Word

LWON came out of its redux mode this week with a crop of fresh posts. A mourning dove laid an egg in Cameron’s house while she was away. The LWON commenters confirm it: mourning doves will lay their eggs anywhere and may need a little more attention from Mother Evolution. Craig returns to the Grand […]

Redux: Anne Sasso has a stand-up calculator

It is Thing Appreciation Week at LWON, where we bring you the Greatest Hits of our previous posts about inanimate objects.  Anne Sasso wrote this post in January of last year celebrating her pocket calculator, which has stood by her for 40 years while planned obsolescence ate all of her other devices — and their replacements. […]