With all the fears of invisible pathogens out there right now, I had the pleasure of joining a group of teenage girls working to combat microbial stereotypes this weekend. Calling themselves Bio Buddies, they demonstrated how to use bacterial cellulose to create “clothes” for paper cutout characters. What’s bacterial cellulose? It’s the …
You probably know that feeling of waking up the next morning and thinking, “Dang, I really should’ve said that differently!” That’s how I woke yesterday. This week, I was honored to be part of a panel about climate change that featured Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist who has done an enormous amount …
As someone who cares deeply about the future of our planet, I also feel strongly that the only way forward is to work together. For that reason, I’ve been very intentional about remaining non-partisan in my public positions. I have been vocal about about limiting fossil fuel emissions, but realistic that it …
Last week a producer from the BBC’s show More or Less contacted me with a question from a listener: Can jellyfish swim as fast as an Olympic swimmer? (I’m guessing this question was in part spurred on by Michael Phelps’, umm, race with a shark during Shark Week in 2017.) I LOVE …
For the last month on Mondays at lunchtime, I’ve been logging on to a Zoom Spanish class with a half a dozen other women. All of us have varying degrees of high school, college, and life experience that qualify us as “intermediate” speakers. We all intermittently confuse the differences between ser and …
There’s something about self-isolation that longs for the wandering ways of the jellies. So I’ve probably spent a bit too much time oogling videos lately. Luckily, there’s been plenty to virtually drift off to. The Schmidt Ocean Institute captured video [click the link, that’s just a screen grab on the left] of …
For the last few months, the world has been watching the spread of the deadly coronavirus and lives have been upended in the uncertainty of its trajectory. Governments have been mobilizing their responses and businesses have shut down operations. And all the while there’s been another lethal and massive epidemic building. One …
The news is terrible. I find myself picking up my phone and clicking the “News” ap on my phone every hour, twice an hour, three times. I’ve read all the stuff about dopamine hits from clicking and I get it. It’s an addiction. Plus, like I said, the news is bad so …
How Do I Not Know This #1: Janthina’s Violet Liquid Continue reading
I’ve been getting Google alerts on the word “jellyfish” since 2010. For eight years a daily roundup of jellyfish news from across the web has been rolling across my inbox in the mid-afternoon. I’ve seen most of the stories several times. I’ve seen giant jellyfish drifting near video cameras on oilrig platforms that …
I’ve had the most extraordinary response from SPINELESS. Beyond anything I could imagine. I thought I might share some more of that goodness here. It’s been amazing visiting book clubs around Austin and talking with readers, from groups of lawyers and doctors, to groups of women who have been reading together for …
Jellyfish Art, a Polyp Finder, The New York Times & Helen Macdonald! Continue reading