Despite wintry weather chewing at my edges I’ve spent plenty of time outdoors roaming the Pioneer Valley in the last few months. In late January, UMass geoscientist Julie Brigham-Grette took me for a McPhee-style gander through regional geology: Right now, we’re turning down a squelchy, pitted dirt road in the back fields of Sunderland. Minutes …
Read more “Roaming the Valley – ancient lakes, frogs, and sand volcanoes”
I’ve been slow to post my latest columns for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, so here’s a slug of them. Unsurprisingly, they all center on a similar theme – the way our world is heating, burning, every day hotter to the touch and to the thought. It’s burning in real ways, like my article on the …
As the sugar and red maples finally turn from green to shades of red, peach, orange and yellow here where I sit writing beside the river, it feels like a good time to share my fears for them as New England’s loved and iconic tree in this new ecological future we are both living and …
Read more “Sugar maples’ uncertain future”
As the return of spring brings a breath of hope, my latest for the Valley Advocate: a touch of memoir tangled up with politics and science. * As a kid in Brazil, my dad was science-obsessed. When a teenager, he convinced his uncle to bring him chemicals so he could make them react in his …
Read more “The story of science”
As the number of backyard and urban beekeepers surges nationwide, I visited a friend’s hives to write about honey bees. I also looked into the bees’ struggles with colony collapse disorder. But writing the article, I found that a still more urgent problem than honey bees may be wild bees. Honey bees, lovely and important …
Read more “Bees, wild and tame”
I talked with Bob Flaherty on WHMP about water, crumbling water infrastructure nationwide, and the responsibility of large companies like Coca Cola – which operates a large plant in Northampton MA – regarding payment to towns for their water use. An in depth look at Northampton’s new water sewer rate – WHMP Morning News The …
Read more “Water, for one town and nationwide”
NORTHAMPTON — About a year ago, I saw three deer running across the Connecticut River. They weren’t walking on water: the river had frozen, thick enough to support their lightly tripping hooves. Last winter, Bostonians got so much snow they called it the Snowpocalypse. This December, I saw a deer again, but it stood on …
Read more “A world overheating”
I have an article out in Science News for Students this week, on the immune system, and how computers are allowing us to create simulated immune-cell interactions that mimic the human body and healing: Virtual Wounds: Computers probe healing It’s written for young people age 8 to 18. When the body needs to deliver immune …
Read more “Immune system in a computer”
I have a profile out today in Smith College’s Insight magazine, on Smith College Lyman Conservatory manager Rob Nicholson. It describes his adventures in plant-collecting expeditions around the globe: An Aztec curse seemed like a minor obstacle as Rob Nicholson, manager for the Lyman Conservatory of the Botanic Garden of Smith College, climbed a monkey-hand …
Alison Hawthorne Deming, a poet and essayist who focuses on issues of science and the environment, visited Smith this week to speak from her work. She had some wonderful comments during a Q&A on her writing. I always ask environmental writers how they maintain hope in the face of the immense challenges we face: species …