Nine years ago, to escape the terror and unrest of their war-torn homeland, 10,000 boys of the Dinka tribe of southern Sudan began an unaccompanied trek that would take them hundreds of miles into Ethiopia, back to Sudan, and finally to a refugee camp in Kenya.
Biology
A Sudanese combatant in 2011 • Photo by Steve Evans (CC BY 2.0)
Photo by Tatiana Syrikova from Pexels
It’s smarter to be born in spring?
Are people born in the spring smarter than the rest of us?
Photo by Prabir Kashyap on Unsplash
Dining on energy at the ants’ table
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work,” writes the Pulitzer prize-winning poet Mary Oliver.
The double helix stairway at the Vatican Museum • Photo by ctbroek (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Searching for a metaphor for the miraculous
Every high school biology student learns something like this: “Before a cell divides, the DNA replicates itself. A complete copy of the DNA moves to each side of the cell. Then the cell splits down the middle.”
Photo by CDC on Unsplash
To the microbes, we’re all shmoos
Remember the shmoo?
Photo by Derek Owens on Unsplash
For the love of dirt!
I’m tired of hearing about the Blue Planet.
Caenorhabditis elegans • Image by Bob Goldstein, UNC Chapel Hill (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A worm for the ages
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em,” says Malvolio in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” quoting Maria’s letter.
Photo by Amisha Nakhwa on Unsplash
The revenge of the human Dixie cup
This is the tale of the disposable soma. It’s not exactly a pleasant tale, especially if you are on the silver side of fifty.
Hypochrosis baenzigeri • Photo by budak (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The moth that makes an elephant cry
A photograph in the book review section of the journal Nature shows three moths drinking from a trickle of liquid that flows from a huge glistening eye.
Joseph Merrick in 1889
Nature’s perfect imperfections
On my desk is a blueberry gall, given to me by a student who wanted to know what it was.