Author. Thinker. Other things.
Dan letting me help rehabilitate a cold-shocked green sea turtle Last Wednesday, I teamed up with my colleague Dr. Dan Dombrowski, Chief Veterinarian at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences to launch Love Nature: The Biophilia Podcast. The launch itself was part of of BugFest, the Museum's largest event of the year, attracting 30,000 people... Continue Reading →
I've written recently about our pressing need to think globally about wet markets and the bushmeat trade. Aside from their devastating impact on wildlife, these practices are superhighways for diseases to enter the human population, with catastrophic effects to health and the global economy. While we're currently experiencing this with Covid-19, it's also been the... Continue Reading →
Just a couple of weeks after the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day, which was meant to engage the world in "a billion acts of green," saw us focusing instead on a global Coronavirus pandemic catalyzed, it would seem, by eating wild animals (most likely bats) from so-called "wet markets" in Wuhan (if you follow the... Continue Reading →
Like a lot of people, the global pandemic has made me think about our relationship to nature. What might life look under the combined effects of climate destabilization, disease, and other environmental stressors (wrapped up nicely in the concept of planetary boundaries)? Could we expect, in the wake of a global population vastly reduced by... Continue Reading →
There was a turkey in our backyard this morning. It was scratching around the the wood pile looking for whatever small animals might be living there. Despite diving for my phone, I missed getting a photo of it, so here's a picture from somebody else. Living in an urban area as we do, it's pretty... Continue Reading →
This is my final blog post related to Carnegie Museum of Natural History, finishing up with a topic that has interested me for the last four-and-a-half years. Natural history habitat dioramas can provide passage to another place, and another time. In 1932 the artisans at Carnegie Museum of Natural History created this habitat diorama "Red... Continue Reading →
Early in 2020, I will have the enormous privilege to be taking on the role of Director of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It's located in Raleigh, is the oldest established museum in North Carolina and the largest museum of its kind in the Southeastern United States. It's also Raleigh’s largest tourist attraction,... Continue Reading →
I'm enjoying a rare opportunity to indulge in a little bit of curation. At Carnegie Museum of Natural History, we are putting up a new display on human evolution called Becoming Human and I'm working with our wonderful exhibitions team to work through the various stages of its development. It's going to be installed next... Continue Reading →
It's a little daunting contemplating finding something novel to write about cats, the unofficial mascot of the internet. But we're thinking of getting one (or two), to add some fun - and a few hair balls - to our household. There's a lot to think about. What to get and how to get it? We're... Continue Reading →
I have just accepted a very exciting invitation - to be on the Earth Day 50th Anniversary Global Advisory Committee, joining an incredible list of active supporters of the planet's environment, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Richard Branson, Philippe Cousteau, and Alan Horn, Chief Creative Office and Co-Chairman of Walt Disney Studios. The invitation to be... Continue Reading →
ERIC DORFMAN 