February is not the easiest month in the garden. The weather is dreadful, the ground is soggy, and some indoor project is probably demanding your attention. Income taxes, perhaps, or the last of the earthquake repairs. It is too early to think about a summer vegetable garden. Tomatoes and squash and green beans will not […]
Life + Outdoors
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The Ends of the Earth
Quickly, point in the general direction of the North Pole with one arm. With your other arm, point to the South Pole. What’s the angle between your arms? If you look like Fig. 1, take a moment to think about it. And if you’re still thinking about it, peek at the figures at the bottom […]
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Orders of Magnitude
At a conference on Mars some years ago, I was amused by a comment by long-time NASA researcher Chris McKay. Another space scientist was enthusiastically explaining how his proposal to send humans to Mars would cut the cost of a Mars mission by 90 percent, from NASA’s then-estimated $400 billion to a mere $40 billion. […]
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The Sound of Green
Whimsical pagodas, surreal temples, and bridges to nowhere inhabit the fantastical world of Las Pozas, an 80-acre garden about seven hours north of Mexico City. Although the structures look like they were designed by a committee jointly headed by M.C. Escher and Lewis Carroll, they were in fact the brainchildren of an eccentric Englishman, Sir […]
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Love, Roses and Haiti
It’s been three years since Flower Confidential was published, and in that time I’ve come to expect a few calls from reporters around Valentine’s Day looking for a comment on so-called "green" issues in the flower business. The narrative in the media has shifted somewhat over the last few years; it’s moved from "behind every […]
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Sophie Smells a Shaker
You have undoubtedly seen the YouTube video "My dog Sophie senses the 6.5 earthquake at the Times Standard." Sophie springs into action and rushes to her owner, Jessica Richelderfer, almost six seconds before the serious shaking begins. Sophie’s video is widely invoked to support the notion that animals possess supernatural senses. The sudden failure of a fault at […]
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Corporatize My Garden
I get a lot of marketing materials sent to me by the horticultural industry. In addition to the usual tools and sprays and gadgets, there’s usually some hot new plant that they want to get garden writers excited about. It’s always pitched as the biggest, brightest, bushiest thing to ever hit the market. It’s disease-free, […]
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Altruism’s Hidden Benefits
I’m an easy mark. If someone in the Plaza wants a dollar for a cup of coffee, I instinctively pull out my wallet, even though I’m pretty sure that coffee isn’t my petitioner’s beverage of choice. Seems that altruism — concern for others without the expectation of a reciprocal pay-off — is quietly at work […]
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A Skin-color Enigma
Growing up in England in the ’50s, I thought of myself and my friends as having "regular" skin color, while dark-skinned people were the exception. To put it bluntly, we were white and they were black. Now that I’m lucky enough to have dark-skinned friends, and to have spent time in places like India and […]
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The Monty Hall Problem
So much ink has been spilled over the "Monty Hall Problem" that a little more won’t make any difference (first fallacy!). The "paradox" (second fallacy) got a huge play 20 years ago in Marilyn von Savant’s Parade magazine column, and resurfaces at regular intervals. Here’s how Marilyn posed it. You’re on a Monty Hall’s Let’s […]
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Still More Garden Theft
It saddens me to have to bring up the subject of plant theft again. I thought we were past this. Blame it on the economy or the general decline of civilized society, but it seems that people are once again taking stuff from gardens. This season’s round of poaching began when a friend called to […]
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Jupiter’s Moons, Plus 400 Years
Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science. — Stephen Hawking Today’s issue of the Journal marks the 400th anniversary of the moment our view of the cosmos changed forever. On this night in 1610, an obscure professor at the University of Padua (near Venice, Italy) first […]