A year ago this month, I followed some random link and came upon 10Q, a site that promises to ask you 10 questions over a period of 10 days and then send your answers to your inbox after a one-year interlude. The questions were generic but reflective: “Describe a significant experience that has happened in […]
September 7-11, 2015 In the way that miniature zeitgeists sometimes appear here at LWON, it was a week that centered around birds and flight. Renewable energy is great until it massacres all your eagles. Cameron follows the newest developments in wind farming. Boobies are unfaithful, fratricidal maniacs, says Eric. But it’s not their fault, and […]
I’ve always enjoyed the code-breaking aspect of reading in a foreign language. If I can’t justify the time to read something vapid but appealing, I tend to pick up the French version and keep Google translate handy for the new words. Still, what I’m really managing is my own challenge level – I have no […]
Investigative journalists seem awfully glamorous – delving into mysteries and catching those liars at their game. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the aptitudes involved, so I steer clear of it. But recently I’ve had the thrill of that hunt in miniature. It all began when an editor sent me a link to the check above, […]
It’s a Redux week here at LWON as we take a short summer break. My holiday reading is Tales From Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience, by Michael S. Gazzaniga. It’s a memoir of the amazing discovery of split-brain phenomena in patients whose left and right brains have been separated. It put […]
August 3 – 7, 2015 Produce from our lovingly tended gardens is communal property, whether we like it or not, finds Ann. The tragedy of the commons never sounded so joyful. Erik Vance wishes his sequenced genes could explain everything about him and predict the course of his unborn son’s life. Alas, the crystal ball of […]
When Michael Jackson died, it came to light that he had been receiving an IV drip of the anesthetic Propofol throughout the night for the previous two months. His death was attributed to cardiac arrest, brought on by an overdose of the drug. Clearly, this kind of treatment is a bad idea, and I don’t […]
On twenty minutes’ notice, I was recruited as a judge for this year’s middle school science and heritage fair. The numbered displays were set up in rows in the gym, where model volcanoes smoked near replicas of Sir John Franklin’s ships. We judges chose score sheets affixed to a clipboard and roamed the aisles looking […]