Category Science

Welcome to the Plasticene

plastic in the ecosystem

You might [or more likely might not] have noticed a marked shift here at the blog away from content with any hope of lifting environmental, sustainability or human-culture topics up into the radar. The blog readership has morphed far away…

Young Blood and The Thread of Life

elderly aging longevity

Things come in threes and when they do, I start to see shapes in the clouds. Creativity, after all, is putting together what already exists–often in some other person’s work or thoughts or writings–in novel ways to make them your…

Speeding Tickets From Space

The SkyBox cameras in space will revolutionize how we watch things happen on the surface of Earth from now on. There are some good things that will come from this. We will never NOT KNOW how fast the forests are…

Well Nuts. Almonds at Risk

In conversation the other day, somebody told about their increasing reliance on almond flour as a gluten-free alternative to wheat flour. I suggested they stock up and begin looking for alternatives. The cost of almonds is likely to spike as…

Mothership Virus Nears Earth

This marks ten years since I taught “Environmental Biology” at Radford University. One of my students chose to write about bird flu. I wondered why he cared if a bird sneezed. I soon learned that avian flu was one of…

Ice Nine and Other Ices

I had told myself ENOUGH ice-talk and images on Fragments already. But winter does not relent, and waters winter forms dominate our days. We have a covering of snow to complicate things this morning. Coincidentally, I ran across this article…

Yes, You ARE the Center of the Universe

But don’t let it go to your head. So is everybody else. Really. But it’s a big place, and getting bigger. “The” Universe is wider across, in fact, than twice distance light has traveled since the Big Bang. I’d seen those…

DNA: The Language of Commerce

I was reading again the other day about tentative new plans for “rewilding” the earth with recently–or long-extinct–animals that have disappeared due to the impacts of the human swarm during the age of modern civilization since the last ice age.…

Time Keeps on Ticking, Ticking…

I have once again waded into a quagmire–the occasion, an opportunity to talk with the small group of high school kids as they begin to think about their place in the world–in time and in place. Place is easier to…

Billion-Year Bottled Water

We’re talking well-aged water: like for a billion years or more: found trapped in ancient bedrock north of Lake Superior. And that ancient water may contain living organisms that came along long before multicellular life on the surface. Or so…

Karst

The word has the harsh consonant sounds of a Slovic swear word. But it’s appropriate in mixed company. (Isn’t this an antiquated phrase, considering what is deemed appropriate–or at least uncensored– in any company at any time and any medium?…