my delicious loose ends
Mirror, Mirror
“Please don’t leave me at this point. Refrain from dismissing this approach out of hand. Instead, call it a scientific game, with the rules changing to fit new evidence. The game is well worth playing. The payoff, even if the chance of contact with human-grade aliens or higher proves forever vanishingly small, is the building of a context within which a sharper image of our own species can be drawn.”
—Edward O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence
Frederick, by Leo Lionni
“Generations of children have loved the picture book, Frederick, since it was first published in 1967. It’s the simple tale of a family of field mice who work very hard all through Summer and Autumn getting ready for the long hard winter. It’s hard work, but as long as they all pull their weight they should be ready. However, one field mouse, Frederick, doesn’t seem to be doing any work.”
“The other mice think he’s lazy and daydreaming his days away. But when winter arrives, it’s Frederick who has a special surprise in store that helps them survive until spring dawns again.”
View a video production of this timeless story on YouTube.
Sand Dune Ecology
“The surface of the sand was moist and pockmarked from raindrops, but showed no other sign of the rainstorm just past. This was, indeed, a vivid object lesson in the absorbing capacities of sand dunes. Sand dunes are less arid than they appear; in fact, they are among the moistest of desert habitats. Like a sponge, dunes soak up every drop of rain that falls on them. No water runs off dunes, and since the top several inches of dry sand insulate moist sand beneath, little water evaporates. Even during hot, rainless summers, when the air temperature is 100F and the sand surface is 140F, the sand is cool and moist just six to twelve inches below the surface.”
—Janice Emily Bowers, Dune Country
Dragons & Damsels
“More beautiful than butterflies, more spectacular fliers than hummingbirds, and with intriguing behavior as complex as mammals or birds. They’ve been flying around for hundreds of millions of years, crossing paths with dinosaurs before we mammals were even a twinkle in the eye of evolution.”
