I go to a lot of natural history museums. Something about all those pretty rocks and dead animals, and the chance that I might see something I’ve never seen before or learn something new—I can’t resist it. In the last three years, I’ve been to at least 15 natural history museums on two continents. Here’s […]
Miscellaneous
These thoughts on sneezing first ran back in October 2015, and I loved the responses. Feel free to share more examples of achoo styles from friends and family! It’s always a good time for a robust sneeze. —— When we were kids, my brother was the sneezer of all sneezers. There was never just one, […]
I arrived under a cloud. The arrival was at Punta Tombo, a colony of Magellanic penguins on the coast of Argentina. It was the 2nd of October. Hundreds of thousands of penguins, most of them males, had been coming ashore for about two weeks, marking the start of the breeding season. While they waited for […]
It’s fall, otherwise known as the beginning of cold and flu season. So what better time to revisit the potential hazards of manual nasal aspiration? I first wrote this in 2018. These days I use an automatic aspirator. No mouth suction required! Three weeks ago I came down with the flu. I was sicker than […]
I used to think AI was a hyped-up distraction. I thought it would do a clumsy job of things, and be annoying, but mostly harmless. I’ve changed my mind. What initiated my change of mind was playing around with some AI tools. After trying out chatGPT and Google’s AI tool, I’ve now come to the […]
Is this weird? The other day I was walking in my driveway at my little cabin in central Virginia and came across a pile of animal scat I didn’t immediately recognize, so I poked it with a stick to get more information. The outside of each piece was cylindrical and very dark black, the inside […]
Introduction I hate flossing. My mouth is small, my teeth crowded, the spaces between them difficult to reach. Twice a year, my dental hygienist entreats me to floss more frequently. Sometimes I assent, and mean it, and actually manage to make it work for a few months until I invariably get sick or injured or […]
Lately I’ve been lingering in Bortle 1 zones, rare dark places untroubled by human lights. On the scale, 1 is where your eyes discern the faintest satellites and the fuzzballs of nearby galaxies. When you wake hours before dawn, the atmosphere lacks the flashing planes, and sometimes satellites seem to have fallen asleep. The stars […]
