In the basement of the Ames Free Library in my town of Easton, out of public view, are 14 huge volumes that were among the first acquisitions of the library, and still, after almost a hundred years, remain the largest volumes in the collection.
Articles from October 2019
Photo by natsuki on Unsplash
Our cousin, the sea squirt • Photo by Peter Southwood (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Our cousin the sea squirt
I have a friend, a marine biologist, who haunts the beaches, salt-water marshes, and tide pools of the New England shore collecting the gifts of the sea. Now and then she will find something special that she shares with me. This past weekend she presented me with one of the biggest and finest sea squirts she had ever found washed ashore.
The Thinker by Rodin • Photo by Ed Menendez (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The brain machine
It has been less than 50 years since Ernest Lawrence was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cyclotron. Lawrence’s first particle accelerating machine was four inches in diameter and constructed from window pane, brass plate, and sealing wax. It was the sort of thing any clever fellow could build in his basement.