“To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.”–Helen Keller Twenty-eight citizen scientists from the California Academy of Sciences traveled to the Amazon jungle for eight days this summer. Their mission: to document their observations of the forest canopy for science, and to contribute […]
“As I come over the hill, I hear the wood thrush singing his evening lay. This is the only bird whose note affects me like music, affects the flow and tenor of my thoughts, my fancy and imagination. It lifts and exhilarates me…. It is a medicative draught to my soul. It is an elixir […]
As thousands of festival-goers flock to Coachella over the next two weekends, rock stars are on many minds across the country. But here in San
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. — John Muir You don’t have to be a scientist to know and love the monarch butterfly. That iconic, fluttering orange-and-black creature represents a harbinger of summer, of happiness, and of beauty. Not only does it […]
It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in armed conflict. — Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, former U.N. force commander, 2008 On Nov. 6, 238 scientists (predominantly women) signed a proclamation titled “A call for inclusive conservation” in the prestigious, peer-reviewed journal Nature (Volume 515, pages 27-8). It was 1920 […]
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. — Albert Einstein Did you know that a hundred trillion microbes live in your digestive system, and yet almost nothing is known about them? Our own bodies house one of the highest-biodiversity ecosystems on the planet, and only in the past year or […]
Imagination is more important than knowledge. — Albert Einstein The era of “citizen spies” is upon us! “CSI: Miami,” take note. Many conservation biologists, geologists, public health specialists and nonprofits are building up a new army, called UAVs (Unmanned aerial vehicles) or “drones,” which are low-cost surveillance technologies that can fly over sites and capture […]
Congratulations to my undergraduates from our NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates grant “Wheelchairs and Water Bears in Temperate Forest Canopies” for their first publication! This article describes a new species of tardigrade from the trees of Kansas, illustrating that discoveries are everywhere, even in our own backyards. Even more exciting is that these students auctioned […]
Excerpt from “Ecoliteracy in informal science education settings” in EcoLiteracy, pp. 474–475: Specific metrics for the status of US science education indicate that the country
Below is an excerpt from “What’s Up?”, the International Canopy Network Newsletter Vol. 20, No. 2-3, which contains an interview with Margaret Lowman about Treetops
