The first tips of yellow leaves are showing among aspens and cottonwoods in western Colorado. Summer, though still plenty warm, is beginning to turn. You think about what inevitably comes, leaves dropping, opening the stage for snow and ice. You imagine what it will be like to hear the crunch of it every time you […]
Guest Post
The first week in August was a big one for feminist Mars news (if I could design a beat…). August 6 marked the one-year anniversary of the Curiosity rover’s landing, and to celebrate, Mattel revealed Barbie’s 2013 Career of the Year: Mars Explorer. Mars Explorer Barbie (available in both caucasian and African-American varieties), with her shiny, […]
“Can you talk to a stranger for an hour?” Despite coming from a computer, the question felt almost aggressive. Of course I can talk to a stranger for an hour. I was a reporter for over a decade; you can’t do that job without learning to talk to almost anyone for an hour. Still, I […]
Last month, the UN announced that the conflict in Syria has killed at least 92,901 people. The number has been widely picked up. Yet many reports miss how crucial the “at least” really is. 92,901 is the number of confirmed deaths – that is, a count. Mostly likely, considerably more people have died. Soon, the […]
Ann: May I introduce my friend and colleague, Sharon Weinberger. She once wrote a book about her trips to the world’s various nuclear test sites and it sold reasonably well, probably to boys. But recently somebody else’s book, The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold History of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, […]
We are obsessed with the idea that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred. But really, would the two species be compatible? Homo sapiens are flaky artists; Neanderthals are all business. Nevertheless maybe a Neanderthal guy found himself falling for a Homo sapiens gal. Here’s some belated advice: 1. A well-tailored set of animal skins is certainly a turn-on, […]
“In the 1960s we noticed there was a problem with time,” says Witold Fraczek, an analyst at Environmental Systems Research Institute in Greater Los Angeles. In 1948 Harold Lyons at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. built the world’s first atomic clock, an instrument that keeps time based on the vibration of atoms […]
For the last five years, I’ve been letting psychology graduate students experiment on my children. That, of course, sounds much worse than the reality that I take them to participate in experiments at the University of Colorado lab that probes early language development in toddlers. Still, I have a lingering unease when it comes to […]