discovery

Discovery at its Most Sublime

February 12, 2017

As luck would have it, the grade school I attended had just that year reduced its size from a kindergarten through sixth grade school to a kindergarten through fourth grade school as the result of a then new “middle school” being opened as part of a nineteen-seventies progressive restructuring that took in the fifth and sixth grade students from our grade school as well as two other grade schools in the area. As a result of this, my school ended up with a number of no longer needed classrooms – one of which was a biology lab.

Naturalists in Paradise

September 10, 2015

Three naturalists walk into the world’s largest tropical rainforest… No, it’s not the set-up for what could indeed be a pretty good natural science joke (with a punchline that includes the phrase “Good thing Spruce brought the tonic water!”); rather it’s the beginnings of a series of adventures that would yield some of the most significant scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century.

Sharkopedia

August 5, 2013

The variety of shark species to be found in the world’s oceans is truly remarkable. From the well-known “charismatic” species to the popularly all but unknown carpet, cat, and weasel sharks, the myriad sizes, shapes, and ecological niches occupied by these creatures is truly amazing.

Out of Nature

August 16, 2012

For the whole of the recorded history of our species – and quite likely much longer than that – humans have looked to the plant kingdom for relief from their pains, illnesses, and injuries, insight into their metaphysical conundrums, and inspiration for their reveries. Leaving the latter two of these categories aside for the present […]