RECENT POSTS 
Researching my recent post about “The Living Desert” reminded me of a photograph of bobcats I'd seen long ago. This memory led me to a story about wildlife management and unintended consequences. As a young child, I travelled with my family (at that time only four of us) across the United States from Massachusetts to California. My father had an aviation project to work on in Tucson, Arizona, and took the whole family along for an extended vacation. As we... Read more
During monsoon season in Southern Arizona, the desert is teeming with life. Just this morning, on my way in from feeding the horses, I saw my horned lizard friend and a praying mantis. Horned lizard young hatch during this time of year, so I'll be watching for these miniature desert tanks. Earlier in the season, a fantastic event occurred, one I hadn’t observed before. I wasn’t quick enough with my camera, and thought I’d lost the opportunity to film the... Read more
Ebola cases continue to increase in West Africa, with the rates of increase highest in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Mapp Biopharmaceuticals reports that it has exhausted all supplies of its Ebola antibody cocktail, ZMAPP, but that the company and its partners are scaling up production. "Mapp and KBP [Kentucky BioProcessing] are working with the U.S. government to accelerate scaled up production. The work to date has been funded by grants and contracts that were only sufficient to produce doses for... Read more
The controversy over Shark Week and nature films that some call “fake-umentaries" got me thinking about a nature documentary I watched as a child, Walt Disney’s “The Living Desert.” I loved that film. Its portrayal of the amazing and exotic creatures inhabiting the American Southwest left an impression on me. Ahead of its time, “The Living Desert” was one of the first of Disney’s “true-life adventures” and a winner of many awards, including the 1953 academy award for Best Documentary Feature.... Read more
It’s been several weeks since I joined SciLogs, and I love it! Writing about science has to be the perfect gig. The SciLogs community has been welcoming, which makes me want to dig in and do a great job. The community manager is wonderful about promoting us and does some fantastic writing herself. One of my other gigs is writing as a freelancer for Wick Communications, a community newspaper group in Southern Arizona. I started as an intern (paid) and... Read more
No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe —John Milton, “Paradise Lost” A Terrible Toll I couldn’t help but gasp when I heard about the death of the well known actor/comedian. In the throes of the malady author William Styron called “darkness visible,” the beloved figure apparently took his own life. We knew he’d faced his nemesis before, that Caliban called depression, but the man would always recover—or seem to recover—smiling and miming and acting... Read more
On Friday, American physician and Ebola virus victim, Dr. Kent Brantly, announced that his health had improved. Brantly, a physician/missionary who contracted the virus while caring for Ebola patients in Liberia, rallied after receiving a “secret serum” containing Ebola antibodies. Brantly is in isolation at Emory University Hospital where his condition is being closely watched. The serum given to Brantly and to Nancy Writebol, a second American health worker (whose condition has also improved) is not so secret. Identified early in... Read more
Forty years ago yesterday, Richard Milhous Nixon resigned from the presidency of the United States of America. Whatever you might think of Nixon’s presidency, his politics or his party the fact remains that Nixon displayed the best of intentions toward our wild free-roaming burros…and horses. On December 15, 1971, Nixon signed The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (the Act). In a feat that would be impossible in today’s polarized political climate, Congress had passed the Act unanimously.... Read more
I started writing my last blog post (the one about some of my favorite Arizona arachnids) a few days ago, but felt uncomfortable publishing what I’d written. After I pushed the publish button, and the post was on its way, I pondered why I’d hesitated. I was reluctant to post because I thought the topic — bugs I’ve known and been fascinated by — might be considered trivial or silly. I thought wrong. My first science book was a Golden... Read more
It's been about a week now since I joined SciLogs as a blogger. Thank you all for the great welcome! One of the things I've enjoyed as a new member of SciLogs is exploring my fellow bloggers' sites. One blogger, Christopher Buddle, quickly caught my attention. His blog is named Expiscor. Buddle's now on hiatus, but I'm particularly drawn to some of his subjects — those wild and crazy arachnids. If you check out Buddle's blog entries and his twitter feed, you'll... Read more
