Human civilization tends to gravitate toward extremes in many realms. When it comes to weather, that is for good reason. No reminder is needed that, aside from a pick-ax to the eye, too much hot or cold is the very definition of discomfort. That is why, in our age of increasing climate extremes, and when […]
“This is, genuinely, my idea of beauty. This is life after cities. This is life after humans.” We are staring at 57 acres of overgrown wildlife comprising the former Pruitt-Igoe, one of the most iconic modernist feats in the history of public housing, and also one of the most catastrophic failures. The “we” in question […]
As the Gateway to the West, St. Louis might well also be called the Gateway to Ardent Gating. Arguably prescient of a national shift in civilian traffic from public space (parks, squares, promenades) to private (fitness centers, Apples stores, capacious motor vehicles) this gate-gusto has likewise contributed to a prevailing ethos of “keep out,” especially […]
As a graduate student researcher, I work in a mass spectrometry lab with five different types of spectrometers. These instruments are highly sensitive to the environment (and also extremely expensive), and small perturbations or temperature fluctuations can be very harmful. This means that every power outage, building exhaust issue, and volatile substance can cause our […]
Big game hunting implies that a hunter is in pursuit of the most dangerous “big game” in the area. Africa’s “Big Five” are elephant, rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, lion, and leopard. American big game animals are bears, moose, and bison. Tigers and rhinos are the big game hunted on the Indian subcontinent. People seek the thrill […]
Highlighted by the recent embryonic genetic engineering (CRIPSR/Cas9) controversy, advances in genetics and genomics have been made in leaps and bounds in the past twenty years. It is now relatively easy for us to obtain genetic information about ourselves (23andme DNA kits, for example), and even our pets. Entire genome sequencing is now possible, albeit […]
Theodore Meir Bikel was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 2, 1924. His family fled to Palestine after the Nazi Anschluss in 1938. After a lifetime of accomplishments, he died of natural causes in Los Angeles on July 21, 2015. He was 91 years of age. Broadway and Hollywood: Theodore Bikel was a lecturer, author, […]
Not much. In fact, the mosquito has long been extremely annoying and extremely deadly, with one half of all human deaths since the Stone Age being attributed to mosquitoes. They are vectors of several human diseases, including encephalitis, filariasis, yellow fever, dengue, and malaria. They also spread West Nile virus from birds to horses and […]
Summer is finally here and for some of us, the sweat-inducing humidity and high electrical bills are the least of our worries. Mosquito bites are inevitable for nearly anyone who ventures outside, but unfortunately the blood-sucking insects display a definite preference for their victims. And while multiple bites can be an itchy nightmare for those […]
Speaking as one whose high school gym teacher once called him a “textbook private school turd,” I feel confident in reflecting on the strange, privileged, frustrating, enlightening world that is private education. As a teenager, I was lucky enough to attend classes whose enrollments usually hovered between 5 and 15 students. Above all else, this made classes […]