There are many ways to celebrate a new year—for me, it’s by becoming a “person of LWON” and joining some of my favorite science writers at this commodious corner of the web. For fishmongers at the massive Tsukiji market in central Tokyo, however, there’s no more festive way to ring in the New Year than […]
Food/Drink
First week of January. Like everybody else in America, I’m on a diet. I’ve tried lots of diets over the years, and no matter how simple the particular rules — Fat is bad: stick to salads, whole grains and fruit! No no no, fat is good: lay off carbs, and eat lots of meat. Count […]
Every time I see a new scientific paper bearing the name of Dolores Piperno, I sit up and pay very close attention. Piperno is a force to contend with in the world of archaeology, a researcher whose work is so unconventional and yet so rigorous that she has won over a small legion of skeptics […]
Each year my mother asks for my Christmas list. No, I’m not eight. I’m more than two decades older than that. Yet she still asks. And I still send one. (I also cc Santa just to be on the safe side.) This year, I’m inclined to ask for a kitchen thermometer. It’s not that I […]
An old Yiddish joke: A poor yeshiva student visits a local family every evening for dinner. Each night, the family serves him potatoes: boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, potato soup, potato pancakes, potato kugel, and so on. After a week or two of this splendid spud-fest, the student asks his hosts to tell him the correct […]
I admit it: I’m a worry wart. Among the myriad topics that can perturb me is the question: is it safe to eat a strawberry? Sure, strawberries are rich in Vitamin C: just eight of them contain more of the vitamin than a medium size orange, according to the California Strawberry Commission. But conventionally-grown strawberries […]
I confess: my secret vice is reading celebrity wedding news. So naturally I read voraciously all the news reports on Chelsea Clinton’s wedding last weekend to Marc Mezvinsky, spending several precious moments examining the ruffles on her gorgeous Vera Wang wedding gown. But I’m also a keen environmentalist, so I was eager to read of […]
It’s one of the pitfalls of science journalism: Assigned a story, we rush madly off, interviewing scientists galore, gathering mountains of eclectic facts we’re sure our readers will love. Alas, it’s often impossible to cram all these facts on the printed page, because magazines have space constraints. C’est la vie. But hey, this is the […]
