Coming-of-age stories can be brutal critiques of parents. Speaking as someone with grown kids, I notice these things. At this point in life the young-adult tales that resonate with me have a loving parent out of sight, giving the fledgling liberty to try out their wings. And at some point along the way, the young …
Monthly Archives: September 2019
Discovery and Climate Change
During grad school (late 1980s) I attended a lecture by a visiting pioneer of climate science. I’ve forgotten his name but it made a huge impression when he said climate models were a work in progress: at one point the field realized they’d omitted the oceans as a reservoir for dissolved CO2. Leaving out the …
Kratom and Drug Design
If humans had designed the medicinal arrangements in plants, I’d have guessed that committees were involved. The mixes, and the proportions, often appear whimsical or arbitrary. For instance, tobacco has Snow White and the Seven Dwarves – nicotine and a handful of minor players, some with anagram names such as cotinine. Cannabis has the 101 …
Circling-V ™ 