Calypte anna: Anna’s hummingbird
I love the melodious scientific name for this little hummingbird, a species native to the West Coast. The genus name, Calypte, probably comes from a Greek word for veil, a reference to […]
I love the melodious scientific name for this little hummingbird, a species native to the West Coast. The genus name, Calypte, probably comes from a Greek word for veil, a reference to […]
This image of Crater Lake, shot with my point-and-shoot camera, doesn’t come close to conveying the numinous power of this place – not even the finest photography can do that. […]
For wildlife, earth’s worst nuke disaster site continues to prove safer than living anywhere in range of humans. Ever since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, people have been almost entirely excluded […]
This one is 240 million years old, from the Triassic period, collected in Germany. The discoverers named it Pappochelys, which is derived from Greek words for ‘grandfather’ and ‘turtle’. These […]
These images, which I’ve edited a bit in Lightroom, are some of the gems from Snapshot Serengeti, a project that amassed 1.2 million sets of photographs from motion-sensor activated camera traps […]
Not many dinosaur fossils turn up in the Pacific Northwest, but Washington’s finally got one – and wouldn’t you know, it’s a tyranosaurid. The scientists who collected it are pretty […]
“We then experimentally shortened the penis using scissors, without harming the male. We show that the shorter the penis after cutting, the lower a male’s reproductive success.” – Dougherty et. al. […]
I am so happy to know that some salmon get to retire from the whole “epic migration” thing. In one species – the Dolly Varden char – the oldsters actually […]
The legendary scientist Jane Goodall came through my town recently and made headlines by talking about the dangers of genetically modified organisms, in her words, a “shocking corruption of the […]
Some 10,000 died in the immediate catastrophe of raging pyroclastic flows and tsunami waves when Tambora erupted on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia on April 10, 1815. Croplands were so […]