Ahh, the 1960s. A simpler time when women wore pant-skirts and insomnia could be cured by the soothing sounds of Liadov’s Musical Snuff Box. Well, not quite. Flip open this album and you’ll find a two-page ad for a sleeping pill called Placidyl. The tagline reads: “But when music fails, you can rest assured with […]
Cassandra
Phoenix is scorching in the summer, and Pat Elliott had been standing for hours. So she wasn’t alarmed one August day in 2009 to find her feet swollen. “It must be the weather,” Elliott thought. But they also ached. The pain was horrendous. So she called her doctor, and he told her to come in. […]
My husband and I have been in the same apartment for more than four years. It’s a truly lovely place — spacious (for New York) with high ceilings, stained glass, and parquet wood floors. Each room has the appropriate furniture and many of the walls have been painted a color of my own choosing. We […]
December 24 – 28 This was Secret Satan week, in which we science writers confronted our secret fears; which subjects do we find most daunting? Why do they scare us? Ann got us off to a great start last week with an erudite explanation of why biology’s not for her. Richard goes into a cold […]
For the holiday season we here at LWON are giving ourselves the gift of confronting our fears. We are choosing our own most daunting science-related subjects and writing about why they scare us. Oh, physics. It’s flummoxed both Cassie and me. First, you’ll see Cassie’s delightful video about a not-so-delightful experience that soured her on the […]
26 – 30 November This week, Heather reveals the man behind the jade mask. 932,891,133 galaxies, over a 14,555-square degree patch of the sky, going 3 billion years back into a universe that’s 13.6 billion years old. You can’t comprehend numbers like these, but Ann tells you how to feel them. How big a role […]
Last month I mentioned that I was training for my first marathon. Training was tough, but I was doggedly following the plan. Then, less than a week before my marathon debut, Superstorm Sandy hit New York. Floodwaters filled subway tunnels and homes, and strong winds toppled power lines and trees. Roughly 750,000 New Yorkers lost […]
12 – 16 November This week, our site went boom. But we’re all better now. Cassie explored the compelling pseudscience behind chronic Lyme’s disease, and why it can sway even people who should know better. Ann considered gravity’s uncompromising brutality. Heather’s chilling story about how Fritz Haber changed her grandfather’s life is a reminder of […]