On the Road

By: | December 11, 2012


Some sad-yet-happy news: I’m leaving the people of LWON. Next week I’m launching my own blog at a new network hosted by National Geographic. I’ll be sharing a web neighborhood with some amazing writers (and they’ll post their own announcements soon). My blog, called Only Human, will be all about people — our genes, cells, brains, behaviors, history and culture.

The move has prompted me to reflect on the last two-plus years of my contributions here at LWON. I wrote some posts that turned out to be unexpectedly controversial, cathartic, and popular. I experimented in cartoony multimedia. My voice matured, maybe, and word counts swelled, definitely.

My favorite posts are the quirky detective stories, like how to find out whether Napoleon is really buried in Napoleon’s tomb, or what disease killed Chopin, or in what country a mouse hopped aboard an otherwise sterile container ship.

In that spirit, I leave you with an offbeat tale about the Silk Road, Marco Polo, lamb fetuses, paleo-proteomics and a very old bible.
Continue reading →

Guest Post: The Wine Grapes of Westeros

By: | December 10, 2012

Thanks to HBO’s Game of Thrones, I’ve become engrossed by George R. R. Martin’s remarkable setting that sometimes feels more like medieval historical fiction than fantasy. It’s the first time I’ve admired a fantasy setting in years. Its gray-shaded characters and the complex society of Westeros, where most of the story takes place, brings a relatable feeling to a genre that usually throws realism to the wind.

It helps that magic is a subtle, eerie thing in Game of Thrones. But even in small quantities, magical explanations tend to beget whole new weirdnesses that can only be solved by citing — what else? — more magic. I often feel cursed to poke at oddities that disrupt my suspension of disbelief, no matter how subtle. So here was a nitpicky question I wanted to answer: How do they have all that wine? Continue reading →

Sunday Stories

By: | December 9, 2012
Photo by Emma Marris

For your Sunday-reading pleasure, a few stories that the people of LWON loved this week. In no particular order:

Ann:
Who knew about radiation sickness, and when?, by Alex Wellerstein, Restricted Data

Some Manhattan Project physicists did know what radiation from atom bombs would do to people. Robert Oppenheimer wasn’t much interested.

Bonus: Emma Marris has a really charming Tumblr that combines her specialities: science, natural, and little kids. This is my favorite post.

Christie:
7th marathon win at Route 66… and new Superhero costume World Record!, by Camille Herron on her blog

I know this isn’t really science related, but it’s just totally cool. Professional marathoner Camille Herron set a new record for running a marathon while dressed as a superhero.

Virginia:
My Larry Hagman Story, by Mark Evanier, News From Me

A must-read for any real Dallas fan. Sounds like Hagman had all of the spunk and charm of J.R. and none of the greed.

Lost and Found, by Kelley Benham, Tampa Bay Times

I found myself sobbing in a crowded subway car this week because of this story, the first of a three-part series on a baby born four months too early. The writer is the baby’s mother.

The Last Word

By: | December 8, 2012

3 – 7 December 2012

This week, Richard Branson’s spaceflight-for-megabucks scheme might be the trending, but Heather is far more interested in the intriguing history of the Zambian space academy.

It’s a great post – not least because of the utterly hypnotic video – but can I get a show of hands for anyone who would like Heather’s next post to explain what she was doing in the backseat of an F-18? And why she thought she could just slip that in there without anyone noticing?

Much further out in space, Richard finds that the fate of the universe is blowing in the solar wind.

Returning to more earthly concerns, Jessa tells us why the hills of Canada’s Northwest passage have been burning for centuries.

Cameron considers a sea urchin costume for her interpretive dance routine.

And finally, we have a great post about the all-caps trolls who chase journalists away from controversial climate change coverage, penned by your imaginary boyfriend guest poster Erik Vance.

Happy weekend everyone!

That’s One Small Step For Deuterium

By: | December 7, 2012

The death of Neil Armstrong in August prompted no end of tributes invoking heroism, patriotism, vision, courage, valor, and all sorts of other abstractions. Understandably so. Armstrong’s giant leap was in fact the first baby step in one species’ attempt to leave home. Less in the news, though, was a more concrete matter: hard science.

The Apollo program began as symbolic one-upmanship. In May 1961, President Kennedy, in high Cold War mode, stood before a joint session of Congress and declared, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” The mythology, not without some basis in truth, is that what followed was a sort of Space Race to the Pole, with the United States and the Soviet Union eventually assuming the roles of Amundsen and Scott, respectively (except for the getting-there-second-and-then-dying part).

For the victor, though, the Apollo missions weren’t all golf balls and kangaroo hops. They also included a fair number of scientific experiments. On Apollo 11, one such experiment involved Armstrong unfurling an aluminum foil from a reel, fastening it to a telescopic pole that he’d planted in about four inches of Moon soil, and positioning it so that it faced the Sun. Seventy-seven minutes later Armstrong removed the foil from the pole, refurled it, and slipped it—along with the fate of the universe—into a Teflon bag.

Continue reading →

The Smoking Hills

By: | December 6, 2012

In 1850, British Captain Robert McClure and his crew ventured in the Investigator to the Arctic, with a walrus-shaped figurehead leading the way in search of the lost Franklin expedition. Unlike ill-fated Franklin, McClure employed an Inuit translator and was able to engage meaningfully with coastal communities along the Arctic Ocean. The team found and completed the Northwest Passage – their abandoned ship, with its bounty of metal salvage, would later represent a turning point in the material culture of the Coppermine Inuit – but not before observing a curious phenomenon, which McClure related in his dispatches:

The water was deep, eighty-four fathoms being obtained, only four miles off shore, when near the mouth of the Horton River. On the 4th large fires were seen on shore, and at first supposed to be lighted by the natives to attract attention. Mr. Mierching, however, questioned such extravagance in fuel being committed by Esquimaux, and on the next day (Sept. 5), when it happened to be calm with rain, Lieutenant Gurney Cresswell, Doctor Armstrong, and some others, were sent to examine the spot Continue reading →

Dance Party!

By: | December 5, 2012

I miss dancing. One of my favorite activities as a kid was dropping the needle on our Hooked On Classics record and letting loose across the living room’s faded oriental rug. Later, I danced with gusto in church pageants, whether in charming second-grade square dances or hippie-esque liturgical dances that involved wearing leotards and waving ribbons.

Sometime between then and now, I’ve put away my dancing shoes. Hooked on Classics records and accompanying choreography were replaced with Too Short tapes, DJ Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff CDs, and odd head-bobbing movements. I’ve certainly mocked liturgical dancing. I haven’t gotten anywhere near Gangnam Style.

Continue reading →

Guest Post: Confession of a Climate Coward

By: | December 4, 2012

I recently learned that my colleagues think I am a coward. And even more recently, I learned that I might agree with them.

It all began in 2007. That was a magic year for science writers. That was the year the IPCC released its crushing assessment on climate change, just after the surprise hit of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It was amazing – the world was talking about carbon dioxide and everyone was listening to scientists. Rationality and logic were leading the debate for once and were – dare I say it – cool. It was like all the jocks and the cheerleaders suddenly turned to the kid with long greasy hair, Firefly t-shirt, and They Might Be Giants on his iPod (you know who you are) and said, “please tell us what you think!” Continue reading →