Dear Creatures: I appreciate the sentiment. You don’t loathe humans so much that you’ve retreated to the highest mountains and coldest glaciers to avoid us. I’m touched. I am. You, along with the squirrels, crows, skunks, woodchucks, mice and goldfinches, help to keep urban life real. But I think you’re going a little too far. [...]
I’ve often contemplated, while watching a toucan winging majestically through a forest like a duck with a kayak stuck on its face, “Why the HELL?” I presumed it was a mating thing. Nature does let sexual selection produce some pretty ungainly objects: the tail on a peacock; the sword tail on a swordtail fish; the Rolex [...]
They’re dropping like flies. A couple weeks ago it synchronicity that science shot down. This week it’s dowsing. OK, maybe you already knew that holding a pendulum and asking it serious questions was a bit whack. I wasn’t quite there. I’m hurt. A few yeras ago a dear Woo-Woo friend said to a table full [...]
This is why we need public funding of science: Drug companies are never going to discover that blue food dye might save severed spinal cords. And if they discovered it by mistake they wouldn’t tell us. The injury in question: When spinal cord or brain tissue gets hurt it oozes toxic stuff that kills [...]
Nobody likes an inbreeder. While it does happen in a variety of animals, obviously including humans, Nature doesn’t care for it. She has a way to mark your face if you’re a product of incest. Nature is a little more direct than Nathaniel Hawthorn. He made the mother of the bastard wear the scarlet letter. [...]
“I’m sorry,” says your spouse/child/parent. And you think “BULLCRAP! Nothing about you sounds sorry!” You’re probably right. Humans have an unerring ear for tone, as the babies proved again this week. Babies are great research subjects. Smarter than guinea pigs and not as mean as chimps, their “gaze” tells all. They simply look at the [...]
Death has been going around lately. Which has me curious: What is it in the human brain that keeps grief alive? Why does sadness continue to intrude long after the sad event has happened? I’ve been in the process of selling my father’s camp, and had a massive BOO HOO HOO attack after cleaning it [...]
Last week we saw mathematical proof that sex is good. (What a relief that was.) And now, biological proof that rude guys ruin it for everybody. What female has not heard the following two statements from males: 1: “HEY BABEEEEEEEEE! COME HERE! I GOT SOMETHING FOR YA! YEAH, WALK AWAY, YOU @#$*&!” 2: “Come on, [...]
I’m having phantom “page down key” syndrome. It’s painful. I get to the bottom of a page, my pinkie reaches out, and BAM! It stabs the surface of the desk. I poured coffee in my old keyboard yesterday, then finished it off with a trip through the dishwasher. I’m forced to use the baby keyboard [...]
Why do racing jockeys crouch that way, with their feet up against the saddle? Everybody else rides a horse with their legs hanging down, and their weight on their butt. Answer: 6 seconds. I remember picking up a friend’s computer satchel once, and slinging it over my shoulder. It felt like nothing at all. As [...]
