There is an Asian elm tree that I can see out of my office window. In the winter, its branches trace intricate lines against the pale sky. Every few years, an arborist casts ropes through the branches and climbs up to trim the tree. One year, he pointed out a fork in the trunk with […]
Miscellaneous
This post originally appeared six years ago, before AI further challenged the societal value assigned to personal erudition. But Leonardo remains a guiding light for me, as for so many others. The daily to-do lists and life of Leonardo Da Vinci have much to teach a science communicator like me.
This originally posted on LWON back in 2022. I took this picture the other day, and it’s a trick. For half a second, I thought I’d made some impossible discovery, the track of what looks to be a giant cat in ancient sandstone. With all the prehistoric tracks appearing lately — Ice Age humans in […]
My wife and I have an ongoing debate about whether I take too many photos. Or, more to the point, whether I keep too many of the photos I take. The matter has come to a head lately because our photo account just filled to 89% capacity. We get warnings all the time now. I […]
This first ran in February 18, 2019, back when we thought colds came and went, big deal. Since then, covid has brought us to Jesus and back again, and people are having colds again, not exactly a big deal, not exactly not. And lest this post about our bodies’ resilience be taken as support for […]
Last year, for the first time, food consumption went down, reported the Financial Times, making 2025 “the first year on record where the volume of food consumed in America has decreased.” The weight loss drugs are taking their pound of flesh: not just from their own delighted customers, but from the food industry too. Meanwhile, this week […]
In May of 2025, I went to Mountainfilm in Telluride with my BFF Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. We watched numerous amazing films, but there’s one that continues to haunt me, eight months later. Mr. Nobody Against Putin is a documentary filmed by Pavel (Pasha) Talankin. Here’s the synopsis published in the festival guide: Pasha is a […]
My mother died at the end of June 2024, a few months after my father. They lived the last 39 years of their lives in a tidy but full house, surrounded by books, photos, treasures, and memories of travels. It took a year and a half to transform the house from a cozy den of […]
