I recently photographed a banana slug for a short article I was writing about banana slug slime for the Santa Cruz Hilltromper, a website for nature lovers in the area. “Okay, now turn your head to the left… down a little… actually can you crawl up this rock a bit more for me? I’d really…
Tag Archives | Science
Mystery of the Red Tide
I stood with my feet buried in sand, staring at the ocean waves as they touched the beach. It was mid-October. To my untrained eye, the Monterey Bay shoreline looked like a child’s bubble bath. To California Fish and Wildlife scientists, it was a terrible déjà vu. Nine years ago, an algal bloom wreaked havoc—and…
How does one turtle’s tale promote ocean conservation?
I watched nearly 2,000 baby olive ridley sea turtles hatch while working on a sea turtle conservation project in Costa Rica. Most of them were born in our human-made hatchery from wild eggs we had relocated— each hatchling crawled and tumbled upon dozens of siblings in a sheltered plot, eager to be free. Others were…
Trees Capture Fog — So Why Can’t We?
[This is cross-posted from Bay Nature. Thanks to Alison Hawkes for editing assistance.] A gauzy marine layer regularly envelops California’s Central Coast, wafting waves of misty air over the landscape. Even during a crippling drought, all that water, albeit airborne, is all around us. What if you could capture it? It’s an idea that’s been…
Tech moguls increasingly deciding what scientific research will be funded
[This was originally published as an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News. Thanks to Ed Clendaniel for help editing it.] Billionaires and their foundations are both enabling and shaping scientific endeavors in the 21st century, raising questions that we as a society need to consider more seriously. I have spoken to many astronomers, who…
Face to Face with the Ugly, Marvelous Mola Mola
It’s been described as a “swimming head,” and can weigh as much as an adult rhinoceros—and it also turns out to be one of the most fascinating fish in the sea With a final breath of air, I descend beneath the surface among swaying kelp and flying sea lions. I’m in search of a creature that…
Plenty of Pheromones in the Sea
As we sat in my car outside a silent movie theater in Los Angeles, my friend anxiously opened a plastic bag containing a white T-shirt she’d slept in for the past three nights. “Does it smell like me?” she asked nervously, gesturing the open end toward my face. I stuck my nose into the bag and inhaled….
From disaster to outreach
Sharing science in the days of YouTube Steven Ward has a pretty good trick. He can drop you right into the heart of a natural disaster and you’ll come out unscathed. Guaranteed. Tsunami? Earthquake? Volcanic explosion? He’ll even take requests. (more…)
Top 5 Science Stories of 2012 According to Reddit
2012 was a big year for science. From tiny particles to worlds millions of miles away, there were a lot of science stories worth reading. Here is a compilation of the top five of the year, according to the point-score given by users of Reddit.com. For each major story I’ve made a useful infographic to…
Learning about fear with rats and Legos
As I wrote in my last post, fear can be a real problem for writers. So much so that there’s actually a book on how writers can overcome it, called The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes. But fear isn’t all bad. It’s a crucial evolutionary response that keeps us away from danger, and scientists…