This week I harvested a lovely linden honey (at right) from one of our backyard beehives. Nectar from linden flowers yields a honey that is exceptional both in its pale tone and in its strong flavor. Most light honeys taste light; that from linden is bold but sweet, ideal for salad dressings and marinades. I [...]

Last week Robert Krulwich, a co-host of the wonderful program Radiolab, Pluto’d pink. In a blog post he noted that pink doesn’t occupy a slot in the familiar colors of the rainbow—there’s no P in Roy G. Biv. From this, he concludes that pink does not really exist: That’s why pink is an invention. It’s [...]

Octopuses are purportedly  colorblind, but they can discern one thing that we can’t: polarized light. This extra visual realm might give them a leg (er, arm) up on some of the competition. And a team of researchers has created a new way to test just how sensitive cephalopods are to this type of light. Their [...]

Vivid videos have captured stunning shallow-water octopuses performing impressive feats of disguise—changing color and texture to match kelp, coral or the sandy bottom. But what need would a deep-sea octopod, who lives suspended in dim light and darkness, have for fancy disguises? Plenty, according to a new study published online Thursday in Current Biology. Octopuses [...]

A few years ago, James Gurney, a celebrated artist and author, stood before his easel to paint a deli in Poughkeepsie. Surveying the scene before him, he was immediately overwhelmed with literally millions of details. People strolled by. Insects fluttered overhead. Signs poked out from the store and up from the street. Every tree had [...]