Tag: Science

A herd of caribou stands on an ice shelf, staring directly at the viewer. On a rise in the midground stands a lone bull with massive antlers, silhouetted against the distand blue mountains.

Caribou Kingdom: The Magic of Migration in The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

August 1, 2024

I crawled from my tent and stared at the ice wall along the northern horizon. It looked like something from a fantasy novel, the bulwark of some legendary polar kingdom. No escalade could scale these battlements: the shimmering bastion was a superior mirage, reflected from the Beaufort Sea eleven miles away. And this was no … More Caribou Kingdom: The Magic of Migration in The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

A bouquet of yellow flowers tucked in the spine of am upright book

Unconstrained By Form: Three Poets Who Studied Nature Through Verse

March 31, 2024

Science rescued poetry for me. Verse had charmed me as a child. Dad often read kid-friendly poems aloud; I can still recite The Owl and the Pussycat and How Doth the Little Crocodile. Mom encouraged us to write haiku, limericks, and other forms as part of our homeschool education. My whole family loved Shel Silverstein’s … More Unconstrained By Form: Three Poets Who Studied Nature Through Verse

Two people silhouetted against the vivid orange light of a wildfire.

Where There’s Smoke: EPA Air Quality Indices Ignore Deadly Wildfire Pollution

March 19, 2024

Cold air cleansed my lungs as my crampons bit the ice, hungry for the trail after weeks in the garage. February’s frostbite-inducing temperatures had confined most of my runs to the treadmill’s miasma of rubber and sweat. Once the mercury crept into the teens, I pounced on the opportunity to run outdoors again, inhaling the … More Where There’s Smoke: EPA Air Quality Indices Ignore Deadly Wildfire Pollution

Last Chance To See Our Planet: 30 Years, 2 Reviews, 1 Earth

August 18, 2019

Despite his popularity as a science fiction writer, the late author Douglas Adams championed the value of planet Earth. In the late 1980s, he teamed up with zoologist Mark Cawardine for a BBC radio series called Last Chance to See, in which the pair tracks endangered species around the globe. Adams’ 1990 book chronicling the … More Last Chance To See Our Planet: 30 Years, 2 Reviews, 1 Earth

Walk the Moon: A Sci-Fi Book Launch Honoring Apollo 11

July 20, 2019

Fifty years ago today, emissaries from Earth–riding in a command cabin the size of a car, and guided by a computer less powerful than a modern smartphone–landed on our Moon and left Homo sapiens’ first footprints on another world. In honor of the Apollo 11 anniversary, I chose this date to launch the print edition of my lunar-based … More Walk the Moon: A Sci-Fi Book Launch Honoring Apollo 11