Is passion for science a heritable trait?

My dad and I share an obsession with endurance sports. We don’t just love to get outside and ride our bikes, we actually feel antsy and anxious if we go too many days without working up a sweat. As I’ve written elsewhere, our compulsion for exercise has a genetic basis. Dad and I probably have […]

The Last Word on Nothing Jr. Edition, Part Two

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 […]

Fungus among us — How I learned to love taxonomy

As an undergraduate biology student, I loathed taxonomy. Plant systematics was the only college course I remember absolutely hating. It seemed like nothing more than rote memorization.  I studied with flash cards I’d made on little index cards. Bracts instead of sepals, colored glands that take the place of petals?  Probably a Euphorbiaceae. I spent […]

On anglerfish, scrub jays, and the menageries of childhood

The anglerfish was the iconic animal of my childhood. This eerie creature lives miles under the ocean’s surface and – as you probably know, if you were ever an animal-obsessed kid like me – dangles a fleshy, glow-in-the dark “bait” in front of its monstrous jaws. The dangling bait attracts prey and gives the animal […]

The Last Word on Nothing, Junior Edition

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 […]

How to build a better conference

A few weeks ago, I asked, could we make conferences less sucky? In that post, I pointed out the contrast between two meetings I’d recently attended and tried to extract some lessons for how to make conferences better. After some more thought and a lot of feedback from LWON readers, I have put together some […]

Guest Post: A geologist and a creationist walk into a store

It’s a sunny evening in Fairbourne, a coastal village in rural Wales. Inside a small food shop, I’m listening to the owner and his wife discussing the true nature of the holy spirit. I reach for a packet of breakfast cereal. “The woman just didn’t understand,” says the shopkeeper. I place a tin of tomatoes […]

Abstruse Goose: Math Doesn’t Suck

AG’s little mouseover says, “. . .except algebraic geometry.  Algebraic geometry pretty much sucks.”  I’m going to have to take his word for it, I’m profoundly innumerate.  Moreover, if AG hadn’t added the caption, I would have said this cartoon was about physics.  Physics is the science, the knowledge; math is just the language — […]