Author Archives: Roger Gosden

About Roger Gosden

A British/ Canadian/ American scientist specializing in reproduction & embryology whose career spanned from Cambridge to Cornell's Weill Medical College in NYC. Married to Lucinda Veeck, the embryologist for the first successful IVF team in America. They retired to Virginia, where he became a master naturalist and writer affiliated with William & Mary. He also writes on Substack at What’s Hot in Fertility? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Gosden

Here Be Dragons

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Roger Gosden

Butterfly numbers are down this year in Tidewater Virginia. Since 1999 when local naturalists began annual surveys there have been large fluctuations from year-to-year, but the numbers recorded this year on a hot July day were almost half the reckoning … Continue reading →

Posted in Animalia | Tagged butterfly, Charles Elton, Dragonfly, Dragons, lemmings, Mary Pickford, snowy owls | Comments Off

Badger Bother

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Roger Gosden

Some years ago while following a wide trail through a Yorkshire wood I came across a bunch of roughnecks in muddy boots who were offloading shovels and pickaxes from the back of a rusty van. Terriers were barking furiously in … Continue reading →

Posted in Animalia | Tagged badger, badger baiting, badger cull, badger sett, Badger state, bovine tuberculosis, The Badger Trust | 1 Comment

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Roger Gosden

The gleam of a great idea often glows first and fiercest in an unknown eye and out of a dark corner. How many college dropouts and loners tinkering in their garages have become celebrated silicon entrepreneurs? How many great writers, … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia | Tagged Alfred Russel Wallace, Barnacles, Charles Darwin, Down House, English Heritage, Erasmus Darwin, Origin of Species, Paul Feyerabend, Scientific genius, Silicon Valley, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Theory of Evolution | Comments Off

Girdling the Maple

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Roger Gosden

Consider the consequences if your largest blood vessels were coursing under surface of the skin instead of deep inside the body. I know it’s hard to imagine. But if the aorta ran the length of your back, branching out to … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment | Tagged Japanese maple tree, maple syrup, tree girdling, woodpecker, yellow-bellied sapsucker | Comments Off

Candid about Cats

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Roger Gosden

When a gray cat started prowling around our yard I assumed it was a new neighbor. I was wrong, she was a new resident! I stumbled on her nest by chance a few days later. It was sheltered against the … Continue reading →