Author. Thinker. Other things.
Valentine’s Day is almost upon us. But we’ve had warning - the decorations started going up in stores the day after Christmas. As a holiday, though, it almost keeps pace with Christmas. The first incarnation of the celebration may go back to Ancient Roman times, with the fertility festival of Lupercalia. St. Valentine himself could... Continue Reading →
What you are about to read is not my writing, not all of it, anyway. It’s been generated by an AI bot with prompts from me. I’m using "frase" technology, because I'm too impatient to wait to be let into the ChatGPT website. So, you get onto frase and scroll down (way down) to the... Continue Reading →
The beginning of a new year often makes people philosophical, thinking about what has or hasn't worked the year before and what they resolve to improve. Most of this is positive, at least for me. Lately, though, and I imagine also for many, it's getting easier to let those thoughts become tinged with concern for... Continue Reading →
I’ve been reading a lot lately about de-extinction. Quaggas, Passenger Pigeons, the Thylacine (or Tasmanian tiger - in fact neither a tiger, nor specifically Tasmanian). Not remotely smacking of necromancy, smart geneticists are working diligently to bring these and other species back from the afterlife. In doing so, they expect not only to resurrect the... Continue Reading →
Manatees are hard not to love. It's not exactly that they're charismatic - slow and ponderous, their beady little eyes constantly on the prowl for the next snack. But nonetheless, they capture the hearts of many people, for their cuteness, playfulness, and tendency to appear in warm water of places like Florida, which gives people... Continue Reading →
In 1835, Charles Darwin wrote these worlds in the Voyage of the Beagle: “The archipelago is a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists, and has received the general character of its indigenous population.” Chapter XVII: "Galapagos Archipelago" (second edition, 1845), entry for... Continue Reading →
I braved the over-friendly mosquitos to get some photos. You can also make out some of the many pond snails who hitchhiked in on the aquarium plants. In my last post, I wrote about my utter failure to build a successful frog pond. This was based on considerable research, and no experience whatsoever. What all... Continue Reading →
Last summer, listening to nights filled with frog calls from the trees around our house, I resolved to put in a frog pond in our garden. My hope was to encourage breeding and bring our property a tiny step further towards being a well-rounded habitat for native wildlife. A Gray Treefrog, one of the species... Continue Reading →
I’ve just returned from visiting two immersive experiences that provide a lot inspiration for how we frame - or could frame - our stories in natural history museums. The first of these is the City Museum in Saint Louis and the second, Meow Wolf in Santa Fe. Neither of these are natural history museums -... Continue Reading →
Until recently, we had a number of dogwoods (Cornus florida) on our wooded North Carolina property. Every April, we'd enjoy their beautiful, saucer-like white blossoms peeking through the other foliage, virtually the only reminder of their existence through the thick undergrowth. In September, their berries were enjoyed by a riot of birds. Mockingbirds, bluebirds, thrushes,... Continue Reading →
ERIC DORFMAN 