And the winner is…
Hey, wait a minute. What’s the contest? you ask. As well you might. It’s a competition I’ve never heard of before: European Tree of the Year. And the winner this year is a glorious oak with a history: A Polish … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Nature
Nepenthe
Wordsworth wrote: “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…” Now researchers indicate that sleep itself is a forgetting: In 2003, Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli, biologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, proposed that synapses grew so exuberantly during … Continue reading →
Chimp violence
Anyone who has read Jane Goodall’s books knows that chimpanzees can be very very violent to others of their species. It came as a shock to Goodall, who had lived with the animals for years before she observed the violence: … Continue reading →
Antarctica mystery
There’s a big mystery under the Antarctic ice: Scientists believe a massive object that could change our understanding of history is hidden beneath the Antarctic ice. The huge and mysterious “anomaly” is thought to be lurking beneath the frozen wastes … Continue reading →
The earliest sunset…
…is not at the solstice, the shortest day of the year. It comes somewhat earlier (now, for example), and varies depending on latitude. Here’s an explanation for the phenomenon: The key to understanding the earliest sunset is not to focus … Continue reading →
Dinosaur feathers
An astounding discovery: A dinosaur tail fragment preserved in amber has been found in northern Myanmar, according to National Geographic. This remarkable, 99-million-year-old specimen was found by a team of researchers led by China University of Geosciences paleontologist Lida Xing, … Continue reading →
Is bird poop canceling out cow flatulence?
No, that’s not a joke title. See this: Between the months of May and September, tens of millions of migratory seabirds converge on the Arctic where they eat, breed and poop. Over time, the nitrogen in seabird droppings breaks down … Continue reading →
Fall: past peak
The leaves aren’t quite what they were just a week ago. But although there are fewer of them, some very beautiful ones still remain. It’s windy, and you can feel a nip in the air. Here are some photos I … Continue reading →
Post Office pets
I was at the post office today and bought a set of stamps. The choices I was offered consisted of the basic one, and then a set of trucks versus a set of pets. Pressed for time, with a line … Continue reading →
More fall photos
More photos from Fall 2016 in New England, taken by me with nothing more fancy than my cell phone camera. This one could be any season (except winter), although the leaves on the ground are a giveaway, I guess: It … Continue reading →
Another great Frost quote
This one: ”We go to college,” [Frost] wrote, ”to be given one more chance to learn to read in case we haven’t learned in high school.” He dropped out of both Harvard and Dartmouth, and married his high-school sweetheart with … Continue reading →
Ode to a Frog
My ex-husband has been going through his papers, and yesterday he found something I thought had been long lost—a poem I had written as a 14-year-old sophomore in high school. How it came to be in his stuff I don’t … Continue reading →