Category Archives: My Work
animal planning?
The tayra is a three-foot-long weasel relative that lives in Central and South America. Last week I wrote a story for ScienceNOW about how they cache unripe plantains, then go back and eat them when they’re ripe. Read the story … Continue reading
right whales are ship magnets
Right whales aren’t one of the better-known whales. They aren’t as charismatic as humpbacks or orcas, or as ginormous as blue whales. One story about where they got their name is that they were the “right whale” for whalers – … Continue reading
bats don’t like rain
I just came across something I totally forgot I’d written: why bats don’t like to fly in the rain. (It takes more energy to fly when their fur is wet.)
art and space
My first ever story in New Scientist is out – it’s about a new exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum here in Washington. So it’s like my Museum Tourist posts right here on this blog, except (a) I … Continue reading
hillforts aflame
In the April 1 issue of Science, I had a tiny item about a neat experiment. Two organizations along the Welsh-English border recruited volunteers to test whether the people who lived at 10 Iron Age hillforts in the area would … Continue reading
female dogs see through your tricks
This week for ScienceNOW I wrote a story about a sex difference in how dogs think about physical objects. One of the sources I talked to called the results “odd” and I think you’ll agree. Nobody really has any idea … Continue reading
dodos were skinnier than you thought
The excellent David Grimm at ScienceNOW wins again…by assigning me yet another cool story. This time, it’s about a little kerfuffle in the journal Naturwissenschaften about the body size of the dodo. The dodo, you may recall, was a flightless … Continue reading
counterfeit whisky
For Friday’s (March 25) issue of Science magazine, I wrote a story about some space scientists in Britain who are developing a detector for counterfeit whisky. Here’s the link – you have to be a subscriber for it to work. … Continue reading
the world’s smallest farmers
I wrote this story two months ago and keep forgetting to post it. It’s about some social amoebas, formerly known as slime molds, that farm. They pick up the bacteria they’ve been eating and take the crop along when they … Continue reading
bilingual babies
This weekend the AAAS meeting is in town. Hordes of scientists and science writers have descended on D.C. for a weekend of general science. It’s good times – lots of interesting ideas flying around and tons of colleagues to hang … Continue reading