Never Home Alone:
A Gala of Stories, Foods,and Insights from the Study of the Life in Homes November 15th, 2018 (Evening) Beginning ten years ago scientists at North [...]
Students Discover Update
Overview: Over the last five years we have worked to develop citizen science projects that reach out to the public but also that, more specifically, [...]
Calling All Drones
On Monday, October 9th, Greg Crutsinger woke to an ordinary sort of day. He was looking forward to the week. He was launching a [...]
The Leopard in your Showerhead
Your showerhead is personal. It is the conduit through which water falls on you to keep you clean. It is also full of life. Showerheads [...]
The Sourdough Project Yeast Results are Here!
The Sourdough Project has some exciting updates to share today! Here is your chance to see some of the data for your individual sourdough starter, [...]
Getting the measure of sourdough biodiversity
We have good news. From the 568 sourdough samples our participants sent us we have completed the first of many stages of identification of the [...]
The Search for Lost Microbes
I spent several years writing a book about the value of biological diversity to agriculture, Never Out of Season. In doing so, I gained a [...]
The Stories of Sourdough, the Next Step
Recently, we asked you to share your sourdough starters and stories and you did. You shared them not just from the United States, but also [...]
Dr. Anne’s Book of Common Microbes and their Wonders
In the Dunn lab we have worked for the last decade to study the life in homes. We have swabbed belly buttons, searched under beds, [...]
What to Do About the Ants in Your Kitchen
It all started in a street median in Manhattan, not far from Mary Tyler Moore’s apartment. Marko Pecaravic decided to do a thesis on the [...]
Ten Things Graduate Students Should Study (Never Out of Season Edition)
One of the luxuries of writing about science is that it gives me a chance to weave together discoveries made in disparate fields. I can connect the stories for readers. Sometimes I can even connect the scientists themselves. But the more I write, the more that I see that where such connections are most conspicuously missed is not random. In some subfields of science our ignorance is both vast and predictable. One of these subfields is the intersection between basic ecology and evolutionary biology and application.
We have Sitophilus as pets
Attention students! If you have published a paper in which you have studied the natural history of a pest, a paper you think is elegant, transformative, or just cool, you can enter it here to win a prize of $500. This money is for students only, though if you are a faculty member and have done interesting work on the natural history of pests we want to hear from you too (you just won’t get any money). And, if you have some money you want to donate, in order to support students doing this important work, work that has so long gone undone, you can donate here.
The Syrians and Iraqis at Your Dinner Table
Each detail of our daily lives has a history and, just as with any history, it is a history we would do well to learn from. Consider the biology of your dinner table. Your table itself is Syrian or Iraqi as is most of the food on it.
A Letter to the New Students of Vassar
[Rob has been invited to Vassar to talk to the entering class of students about his book The Wild Life of Our Bodies, but also [...]
Announcement: 6 to 100 Hires in Public Science
[Positions listed at the end of this post] By the time the potato murrain arrived in Ireland scholars had already begun to explain its cause: a blight, a water mold. [...]