A couple years ago I spent 30 minutes lazing on a ledge under some high-tension power lines while my husband and stepson rode dirt bikes. When they returned, I traded helmets with the husband and had a most peculiar sensation. When I touched his skin, both of us buzzed. I touched my stepson’s arm: zzzzzzzzzzzzz. [...]
Yes, it’s a major loss. I didn’t realize how major until the recent issue of Nature counted up the number of newspapers that have jettisoned their science sections as they admittedly founder and sink. Can’t really blame them — readers apparently avoided the science section, which meant no one advertised in it, which meant newspapers [...]
Oh, the mortal coil. One of my mice has a squinty eye — some life-threatening infection? And the “hip saver” doc just told me he can’t save my hip. Life as an animal is a battle against the organic blob of minerals and proteins called “The Body.” That thing just has too [...]
Oh, I am peeved. I just lost a post. Gone. Puff. No idea where that cussed thing went. Anyway, to summarize because seriously I have a book to write: There’s this condition animals get into called approach-avoidance conflict. Their risk-taking, resource-craving center is urging them to approach something; their self-protecting, wait-and-seeing center is [...]
Today I’m thinking about our future house. I got started on this jag when the New York Times ran a house profile showing a wide wall of (indoor) vertical garden, with a wide pool below it — indoors. So, ten-by-five panel of ivy, hanging over ten-by-three pool. Want that. Then thought maybe the vertical [...]
No two mice have ever had more divergent personalities than the two whose tails the PetCo employee grabbed for me. Itsy is a very nice mouse, who will already sit in my hand. But Bitsy, who at first seemed merely energetic, is proving to be a very anxious animal. When my stepson and I were [...]
I’m really excited about getting me some mice. This book I’m supposed to be writing, THE MOUSE & ME: How Nature Builds a Personality, is at that really sticky stage, that stage where I have to, uh, write it. The research is all really easy and fun and it directs itself — one fascinating [...]
Golf clubs should carry a warning: Research has shown that whacking a little white ball with a club will make your gray matter bigger. But only after you whack the ball for thousands of hours. That’s what it takes — 5,000 to 10,000 hours — to become a “skilled golfer,” one with a handicap between [...]
The male cardinals began yelling a couple of weeks ago: WHEET! WHEET! WHEET! Just like that, after a winter of not speaking, they abruptly erupted. The lengthening daylight somehow raises the amount of testosterone circulating in their blood. And when the hormone reaches a critical concentration, the yelling begins: MY YARD! MY TREE! MY BUSH! [...]
Happy Alcohol Day! Humans and our love of booze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbUyJJR_0Vg Bookmark It Hide Sites $$(‘div.d182′).each( function(e) { e.visualEffect(‘slide_up’,{duration:0.5}) });
