science
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There are a number of words that bother me in common parlance. Let’s begin with Superpredator: The word “superpredator”, now almost exclusively used to report on wolf reintroduction in the American west, originated with a racially charged criminal theory in the 1990s designed to demonize juvenile offenders and imprison children for their entire lives. This…
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Every weird kid I’ve ever known selects one worldwide disaster and gets way too into it. I am, unfortunately, the weird kid who never grew out of the practice. I started with the Black Plague, then moved on to the geography of syphilis, then meandered around in the world of parasites and prions and smallpox…
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It is 0730 and I have prions on my mind again. Have I posted about this particular interest before? Probably, somewhere, I’m not going to dig it up. On this morning, I’ve got prions on my mind as a curse. Consider this: You and your flock of sheep take up residence in a lovely little…
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Life is a series of deaths, the most devastating of which occurs upon deciding there is nothing more worth learning. No opinions worth hearing that don’t validate your own, no more care for why the grass is green, for the stories the constellations are named for, for the sleeping giants in the museums. This is…
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I finished Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus a couple days ago. It’s a book I was looking forward to, given how prominent rabies is in our culture and how intensely its intertwined in horror fiction and folklore — ranging from parallels with vampire and werewolf lore to influencing the behavior…
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My thoughts go towards food, immediately. I grew up with a southern mother, so it’s ingrained into me that being a good host means feeding your guests. Offer drinks. No one who enters my home goes hungry. This goes for my community as well. I’ve been enamored with the idea of food forests since I…
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A friend of mine once told me that, statistically, you’re more likely to grow up to do your childhood dream job than anything else. I don’t doubt her. I know artists and blacksmiths, jewelry makers and authors, people making a living on crafts you would expect from a bustling European village circa 1765. For my…
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Which is to say, that there is no single magic bullet that will end all cancer. This is because of what cancer is — a nature often obscured by the language of treatments and punchy catchphrases and political platforms of “advancing a cure” — but the nature of cancer is that of an animal outside…
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I have a job that would make the vast majority of the population balk. The less sturdy among us may faint. Even within my own workplace, common occurrences become sources of trauma for individuals of other departments. Because darkest gods forbid someone with a weak stomach walk in while I’ve got a human leg on…
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We don’t outgrow the things we love, not like a plant outgrows the pot its in. These things simply fall away from us when we no longer need them. Less like a too-small shirt and more like pine needles that drop off in the winter. They can always grow back. I can always pick up…
from the pen of icarus blake 