Nature
The Nature Of The Mundane: The Wonder Of The Human Chin
Fifty years of solving the NY Times Crossword puzzles have blessed me with a peculiar vocabulary, but I also revel in their creative themes and clues. I settle in for Sunday breakfast, open the Times magazine, and wonder how long it will take me to unlock the theme, obliquely hinted at by the title. Prefer…
Read MoreThe Nature of the Mundane Part 3. Darwin and I Take a Walk
I recently took a walk alongside a herd of big-horned sheep in the Rio Grande valley north of Santa Fe, where I couldn’t help but notice tiny fecal pellets scattered all along the trail. How could such an enormous animal produce such diminutive scat, so different from the messy pies of their ungulate cousins, horses…
Read MoreNature of the Mundane Part 2: Fruit Flies
The Nature of the Mundane. Part 2. Fruit Flies It took me decades to make the connection between the annoying insects hovering above the fruit basket and Drosophila melanogaster, the inspiration behind six Nobel prizes over the past 100 years. They are one and the same. I first heard about Drosophila in the context of…
Read MoreCicada Summer
John was pleased that the woman sat next to him on the commuter train, even though it was the only open seat. She could have stood in the vestibule, he thought. The next day there was a vacant seat. She wasn’t forced to sit next to him, but she did. John trembled, his pulse quickened,…
Read MoreMy Warbler
(Artwork by Maria McNitt – www.mariamcnitt.com) The blue-winged warbler struggles as I extract him from the fine netting stretched across the underbrush. Our instructor Caleb assures us that this will only be a tiny interruption in his migration, and the information gleaned from our bird banding will contribute to stewardship efforts. I immobilize the bird between…
Read MoreThe Nature of the Mundane Part 1
TThe clicking sound on my windshield sounds like a brittle cascade of sleet, but this being June, and this being a bluebird sunny day, I consider other sources. I am driving along the north shore of Lake Michigan just past the Mackinac Bridge. Perhaps sand is pelting my windshield, but I reject this option when…
Read MoreMy Crepiness
The afternoon sun can be cruel for those who care about tidiness, its shallow-angled rays highlighting each individual dust mote, both on the ground and in the air. However, I find peace in knowing that a perfectly clean house is impossible. This same sun can be merciless for those who care about aging. Driving east…
Read MoreThe Elegance of the Hexagon
Not that there was any pitched battle for my loyalties, but I have to say that the hexagon is my favorite geometric shape. I first became enamored in biochemistry when introduced to the basic building block of the carbon ring, illustrated as a hexagon of carbon atoms with other molecules hanging off of them. In…
Read MoreIn the System
I sat in the windowless bowels of O’Hare Airport waiting for my face-to-face Global Entry interview. Nick had urged me to sign up not because I deserved recognition as a trusted traveler, but solely to bypass TSA and immigration lines. I have objected to such elitist programs on principle – line-cutting in the grade…
Read MorePeople Sitting in Front of Me: The Man with the Sun-Damaged Skin
The train trip across the Southern Alps of New Zealand was billed as five solid hours of verdant alpine meadows dotted with high country sheep interspersed with braided rivers descending from glaciers. Yes, I did get occasional glimpses, but I was also challenged by the subtler beauty of heavy mist. When all else failed during…
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