August 21-25, 2017 Cast your mind all the way back to Monday and you may remember something special happened then. LWON had been gearing up for the eclipse with a week of related posts, and this week continued that theme, for an Eclipse Fortnight. Craig stayed home instead of driving the eight hours to the […]
Miscellaneous
Debunking Hollywood is LWON’s very occasional series that takes a hard science look at common TV and movie tropes. Nothing says interstellar travel like a hibernation pod. The heroes of the 2016 holiday blockbuster Passengers, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, embark on a century-long journey to an planet outside our solar system. Hibernation pods […]
A couple of months ago, I hatched a really good plan. My husband and I would drive six hours into the path of totality without our two-year-old daughter. We would have a relaxing car ride, followed by some nice meals at fancy St. Louis restaurants. But then I realized that no one was available to […]
I’m not at the totality today, and it’s been gnawing at me. Between 1 and 7 million people are estimated to witness this swath of darkness across the middle of North America from coast to coast. I live about an eight-hour drive away, and I’ve heard totality is a mystical experience, once in a lifetime. […]
August 14 – 18, 2017 Jenny watches the married, loving mourning doves. Then Jenny’s all-but-feral dog kills the dove wife. The dove husband perches above her grave and calls and calls, no answer. So then what? Well what do you think. And with Erik’s post, LWON begins Eclipse Week. Erik polls the ancient Vikings, Maya, […]
You may have heard that there’s a total solar eclipse happening on Monday. I have known about this event for at least five or six years, which is how long my dad has been planning for it. Dad already had me pretty excited for the eclipse, but after reading David Baron’s delightful book, American Eclipse, […]
There’s great dignity in the mourning dove. Rarely does one demand attention. A pair’s gentle cooing is a pleasure, the whisper of parents trying not to wake the baby. The whir of their wings in flight (called sonation) recalls a wind-up toy. A couple of them, in velvety gray-brown with daubs of black low on […]
August 7-11, 2017 Ann has a hilarious exchange with Adam Rogers about ways in which we might strengthen the rigour of the social sciences, whose questionnaire-based conclusions Ann could shoot down “with a bow and arrow riding a fast horse in a high wind.” Those IPCC reports that represent the scientific consensus on climate change […]
