When I’m thrashing through the brambles of a first draft, no story in sight, I have one reliable lifeline. WWJMD? What would John McPhee do to get himself out of this #%&! mess? This, after all, is the guy who found fascinating stories in citrus cultivation. And geology. And Switzerland! Some of his writing is […]
As a journalist, especially a science journalist, it’s my professional duty to ask stupid questions. I’m supposed to have, on your behalf, my share of what my fellow LWONer Cassie Willyard so aptly calls “Hubble moments.” I’m supposed to be a lifelong amateur, someone who can understand and explain science without losing sight of […]
One of the advantages of working at home is that I have more opportunities to talk to my neighbors, who often stop by with interesting news. The other day, a bear got into someone’s chicken coop; not long before that, a stray bull was wandering around in the adjoining field. But the most intriguing […]
As someone preoccupied with odd, mysterious places, I have a longstanding appreciation for an odd, mysterious organization called The Center for Land Use Interpretation. Equal parts arts organization, archive, and amateur detective agency, the Los Angeles-based CLUI (rhymes with gooey) runs bus tours of the Nevada Test Site, mounts exhibitions of hurricane-racked vacation properties on Gulf […]
uring my first year at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, I wrote a lot of term papers and played a lot of Tetris on Mac Classics. Squat, sturdy, and pallid, with a postcard-sized monochrome screen, the Classic was three times as heavy as the aluminum-bound MacBook I write on today — with a mere 1/2000 […]
Last month, I recommended a few children’s books that I thought reflected the curious, adventurous, and humble scientific spirit of The Last Word on Nothing. Friends and readers have since added their favorite titles to the list — thank you! May these books bring all of you, and the young explorers in your lives, some […]
As the parent of a three-year-old, I spend a lot of time reading kids’ books. Some are wonderful, a lot are so-so, and a few are so frigging annoying that — I confess — I hide them. I always expect to like science-themed books — this is my kind of brainwashing, I think — but […]
There are a lot of ways to shrink a carbon footprint. Bike instead of drive. Eat low on the food chain. You know the drill. Where I live, in the boondocks of Colorado, a lot of people — myself included, but I’ll get to that in a minute — go on a carbon diet by […]