The father of evolution was worried sick.
Charles Darwin at age 60
Photo by Lucrezia Carnelos on Unsplash
Virtual reality is not enough
Put on the EyePhone stereographic display goggles. Crank up the audio headset. Slip your hand into the DataGlove. Plug yourself into a supercomputer. Welcome to virtual reality.
"An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump" (1768) by Joseph Wright of Derby
A cusp of history in a painting
On Thursday of this week [in 1990] the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will open a show of the works of the 18th century painter Joseph Wright of Derby. The show had its origin at the Tate Gallery, London, and moved on to Paris before arriving here.
Desmodus rotundus • Photo by Uwe Schmidt (CC BY-SA 4.0)
For the poor bat, life is mostly bad press
As far as I know, Ogden Nash never wrote a verse about bats, but if he had it might have gone like this: Nobody likes a bat And that’s that.
Bust of George Boole at University College Cork • Photo by William Murphy (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The boy who wouldn’t stay ‘in his place’
Inside the entrance of the Boole Library, at Ireland’s University College in Cork, the watchful eyes of George Boole gaze down on visitors from the stern but kindly portrait that hangs in a place of honor.
A swarm of micro-robots • Image by Farshadarvin (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Robognats and roborobins
A cartoon in a recent issue of the journal Science shows a woman standing aghast in her kitchen as the man from Ace Exterminators releases a box full of mice onto the floor.
Photo by Oscar Guinane on Unsplash
The demise of the hedgerow
Much has been written lately about the rampant destruction of tropical rain forests. Another well-known natural habitat is disappearing at an equally alarming rate: the hedgerows of Europe. Although not as significant as rain forests on the global scale, hedgerows are nearer and dearer to the hearts of many Americans because of our cultural heritage.
Photo by Jaime Spaniol on Unsplash
Going against the grain
Independence Day. The sand-castle season begins.
The American Midwest at night from space • NASA (Public Domain)
Lighting up the world
Long before humans actually set foot on the moon they visited that place in their imaginations. One of the earliest lunar travelers was Francis Godwin, who in 1638 published a book called The Man in the Moone about a Spaniard named Domingo Gonsales who travels to the moon and back by attaching himself to a flock of wild swans.
Photo by Oxford University Museum of Natural History (CC BY 2.0)
Summer bugs, summer pleasures
Summer memories. Of firefly evenings long ago in Tennessee. Lingering twilight, dark pines, crickets singing, stars just coming into the sky. Running on the long, sloping lawn catching up “lightnin’ bugs” in our hands. We squeezed them gently between our fingers to set their tiny fires alight, or dumped them by the dozens into a jar to make a lantern.