Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” and kittens with mittens, bright-colored Skittles and feeling all smitten, vibrations screaming from taut guitar strings, these are some things that I find pleasing. I have an emotional connection with each item on that list, but only one routinely spills over into my physiology. Well, two if you count the…
Last year was a banner year for brain research, at least financially speaking. Europe and the United States both launched what could amount to billion-dollar brain studies over the next decade. But before Europe’s Human Brain Project got running, there were rumors that the European Commission had axed the project’s funding proposal in a final…
A version of this post can be found at the AGU GeoSpace Blog and at NASA Landsat Science. California’s persistent drought is forcing grape growers to keep a more-attentive-than-normal eye on their vines, as water shortages and elevated temperatures alter this year’s growing season. “This year, we’re going to have to be more vigilant than ever,”…
The first clue that I was wrong was that I had a knee-jerk reaction. Nu uh, Temple Grandin, I thought, you can too learn algebra! Sitting inside a gigantic fancy tent at the Hyatt Regency in Monterey, Calif., I soon learned that my impetuous disagreement was based on one simple fact: I knew next to…
Today, the Food and Drug Administration will close down the outside comment period on changes proposed to the Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA. Field mice could give a crap. One of the proposed changes would establish rules to minimize the risk of crops becoming contaminated with bacteria, parasites and viruses from animal droppings. The…
“You realize I’m sending you into that mosh pit by yourself, right?” my editor asked while we waited outside a giant white tent. I thought mosh pit was a little severe. The tent was more reminiscent of an overcrowded polka tent I had once worked in during an Oktoberfest celebration. But instead of lederhosen, oom…
