According to tradition, a mulberry tree was planted at Christ’s College in Cambridge the same year that John Milton was born (1608). The tree shaded the poet when he went up to university as an undergraduate, and survives in what
The journal Human Reproduction reported a 27-year old woman in Belgium has delivered a healthy baby boy. That would not be newsworthy if she had not been rendered sterile at 13 years old by a life-saving bone marrow transplant for
Two Swedish biostatisticians drawing data from the UK Biobank have created a test accessible online for estimating your “age” and chances of surviving the next five years. It’s published in The Lancet medical journal. I couldn’t wait to try it!
Everyone knows the most abundant bird in North America was driven to extinction a century ago by market hunting and habitat destruction. The very last passenger pigeon, called Martha, died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. But few people know the
The virtual extinction of the American chestnut across its range is like the story of the sack and burning of Troy. A few old timers can still remember when it was the dominant canopy tree both sides of the Appalachian
Feeling carnivorous or vegetarian, or somewhere in-between? Is it okay to be carnivorous? Is it natural (whatever that means)? I asked these questions when I was a teenager, like many other people who love animals. For a while I half-heartedly
Smells arouse old memories, good and bad. The coconut bouquet of prickly gorse bushes evokes memories of ranks of jasmine blossom on the chalky downs of the Isle of Wight where I was born and Algy Swinburne grew up. Oh,
We heard confirmation last week of rumors that scientists at Sun Yat-sen University in southern China were trying to change the DNA of freshly-fertilized human eggs. This “first” in science was greeted with horror, hand-wringing, and a storm of criticism.
Does any vocation have a more open and welcoming door than natural history? To be a naturalist, you don’t need a high school diploma or a university degree; there is neither an age barrier nor a physical fitness test. Plenty
The poem was inspired by thousands of wild daffodils blooming in woods around Ullswater in the Lake District of England in the spring of 1802. I imagine Wordsworth on horseback in a tightly-fitting frock coat, pantaloons and hessian boots, while
Gordon Burness was born in London on May 7, 1928. When he died in the same city aged 86 he left no large footprint in history, but those close to him knew that a remarkable man had passed. He had
We had exceptionally chill temperatures and heavy snow throughout February up and down the East Coast this year. Cold air that normally hangs over the north-west was pushed down to the Plains by the jet-stream, leaving Alaska feeling relatively balmy.