Environment
Is a Footprint the Right Metaphor for Ecological Impact?
On the cover of Our Ecological Footprint, published in 1996, a giant foot stomps on the Western hemisphere, carrying the weight of cars, overpasses and skyscrapers.
Stories by Laura Jane Martin
Environment
Butterflies and Bombs
The St. Francis’ Satyr is small, brown, and fabulously rare. Once found across North Carolinian sedge meadows, the federally endangered butterfly is now restricted to a few square miles...
Environment
Postage Stamps Overlook Earth's Tiny Creatures
What can postage stamps tell us about biodiversity conservation?When André Nemésio isn’t studying biology, he collects stamps. André and his colleagues Diana Seixas and Heraldo Vasconcelos recently cataloged the animals represented on hundreds of thousands of postage stamps for sale on Delcampe and eBay...
The Sciences
#OverlyHonestMethods, or #SoGladWe'reHavingThisConversation
This Monday thousands of scientists contributed to the hashtag #OverlyHonestMethods, a collection of methodological descriptions that would never appear in a scientific publication: brazen confessions, sardonic resignations, gleeful editions of may-my-advisor-never-read-this.Most of the tweets react to the specialized and strange set of writing conventions that scientists must conform to in order to publish articles in scientific journals...
Evolution
The Death of Natural Selection
My evening plan to read Harry Potter for the first time (I know!) was thwarted by Linton Weeks’s thought-provoking post on the right of plants to evolve.
The Sciences
Scientists as Writers
Scientists study murky ponds, holes in space, and atoms that refuse to touch. Science is inspiring and beautiful. But scientific articles are not. Most scientific articles are so impenetrable that even scientists cringe to read them...
The Sciences
The Higgs Boson and My Mom
The Higgs boson is discovered and I am proud of my mom. My mom has worked as an administrative assistant in the Brown University Physics Department for 18 years.
Evolution
The Co-Evolution of Insects, Plants and a Career
A series of graduate student conversations with leading women biologists, at the Women in Science Symposium at Cornell April 2-3. Insects are difficult to work with.
Evolution
Visiting the Corpse Plant
I woke up, bleary-eyed, to news that would change my week: A corpse plant was about to bloom at Cornell University. In other words, the most amazing thing I could imagine was unfolding, literally, down the street from my house.The corpse plant has the largest unbranched blossom in the world...
