Last week, my parents’ yard in Western Massachusetts was overrun with fuzzy black and white creatures known as Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillars (Lophocampa caryae).  Just after a rainstorm, I noticed that the caterpillars were hanging from trees like spiders, lowering themselves from branches on lines of silk (see video below; apologies for the commentary in [...]

For many, this time of year is the height of hectic, whether due to holiday preparations or grade-filing deadlines at the end of the semester (or, for some of us, both of those together). Amidst the buzz and bustle, sometimes it’s a gift to slow down enough to find a quiet moment and listen to [...]

We’re less than four days from the end of this year’s Science Bloggers for Students drive, the last moments of Friday, November 9. And, I wanted to bring you up to date on the little post-Sandy challenge I issued last week. You may recall that I added three projects to my giving page from hurricane [...]

Super-storm Sandy did major damage to the East Coast, especially New Jersey and New York City. The offices of DonorsChoose are in New York City. Their fabulous staff is safe (and mostly dry) and their computer servers are up, which means the Science Bloggers for Students drive has been operational and ready to receive your [...]

We’re coming into the home stretch of our annual DonorsChoose Science Bloggers for Students drive: Science Bloggers for Students: No Apocalypse in Sight (Transcript below) And, now until the end of the drive, you can get your donations matched (up to $100 per donor) thanks to the generosity of the DonorsChoose.org Board of Directors. Just [...]

Since 2006, science bloggers have been working with DonorsChoose.org and our readers to help public school students and teachers get the resources they need to make learning come alive. Is there an origin story for the annual Science Bloggers for Students drive? As a matter of fact*, there is: Science Bloggers for Students Origin Story [...]

When I and my three younger siblings were growing up, our parents had a habit of muttering, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” The muttering that followed that aphorism usually had to do with the danger coming from the “little” amount of knowledge rather than a more comprehensive understanding of whatever field of endeavor [...]

It is probably no surprise to my regular readers that I get a little exercised about the science wars that play out across the U.S. in various school boards and court actions. It’s probably unavoidable, given that I think about science for a living — when you’ve got a horse in the race, you end [...]

Back when I was a high school math geek, our math team would go to meets that occasionally had tables set up to encourage us to pursue various careers that would make use of our mad math skillz. The one such profession where the level of encouragement far outstripped our teenaged interest was the actuarial [...]

This year at ScienceOnline, the conference banquet featured storytelling organized by The Monti, a North Carolina non-profit organization dedicated to building community by getting people to share their true stories with each other. Conference goers were asked to share stories on the theme of “connections”. The stories had to be true, and storytellers had to [...]

Last week, I got a really nice email, and a request, from a reader. She wrote: I am a high school senior and an avid follower of your blog. I am almost definitely going to pursue science in college – either chemistry, physics, or engineering; I haven’t quite decided yet! I am the editor of [...]