Fiction that Makes You Think
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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6d ago
I have just finished reading my third science fiction novel by the twentieth-century French writer René Barjavel. I have written previously about his novel Le Voyageur Imprudent. A time traveler accidentally kills his own grandfather in the past and thus finds that he does not exist and has never existed. This novel also included a glimpse into a very distant nightmare utopia. Other Barjavel novels dealt straight on with the main issue of the writer’s time, nuclear disaster. In La Nuit de Temps he wrote about a previous utopian world that destroyed itself by nuclear war, but also the explosion ..read more
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What Was I Thinking? Remembrances of My Dissertation
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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1M ago
In 1987, I submitted my Ph.D. thesis, “Environmental Variability and Phenotypic Flexibility in Plants,” at the University of Illinois. What was I thinking? I was dealing with three variables: plants, the growth flexibility of those plants, and the variability of the environment—in this case, of sunlight intensity. I intended to write about all three of these things in this essay, but it quickly got out of hand, so I will just tell you about how I dealt with the complex problem of measuring environmental variability in three habitats: abandoned agricultural fields, tallgrass prairies, and fores ..read more
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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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1M ago
This is the phrase that celebrity physicist Richard Feynman used to describe the joy of scientific research. But it also describes the joy of science education. Feynman was as brilliant of a scientist as you could hope to meet, and to him mathematical equations were as obvious as the nose on your face. But he knew very well that science education did not consist of learning piles of facts. He knew it was a matter of joy: professors and students alike should share this joy. This is what I always tried to do as a science educator, even to the extent of trying out what some colleagues thought of ..read more
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The End of Creativity
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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2M ago
Aldous Huxley wrote a short novel in which he saw a pickup truck speeding out of a Hollywood movie studio, overloaded with unsolicited screenplay manuscripts. The truck veered, and one of the manuscripts fell off. This didn’t really happen, of course. But, almost a hundred years ago, one of history’s great writers complained about how people in power (in this case, movie producers, but this would also include editors and literary agents) would barely if ever look at what they derisively called their “slush pile” of submissions. Today, little has changed. The term “slush pile” is still standard ..read more
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Lucky to Be in Tulsa: The Twelfth Message from Fluff the Cottonwood Tree
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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2M ago
  I am happy that Stan has stayed in touch with me after he moved to France. He was glad to leave Tulsa, but I, speaking as a member of the species Populus deltoides, am lucky to be an American. Almost everywhere in the world, mistletoes are parasitic. In Oklahoma, they grow mostly on elm trees, which are weakened by the Dutch Elm Disease. But in Europe, the elm trees (les ormes, Stan calls them) are stronger, and most of the mistletoes (gui, they are called) grow on black poplar trees (peupliers noirs, or Populus nigra). European black poplars are nearly identical to American cottonwoods ..read more
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Direct Experience with the Gulf Stream: A Word from France
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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2M ago
I just found out that my iNaturalist app still works even in Europe. I just identified a plant that was growing in someone’s garden here in Hoenheim, France: the primrose jasmine, Jasminum mesnyi. With very beautiful yellow flowers. Blooming on December 29. I also saw abundant male catkins, newly emerged, on a hazelnut bush (Corylus avellana), and also on alders (Alnus glutinosa). Wikipedia says the male catkins emerge very early in the spring. This is an understatement. We also saw an evergreen barberry (Berberis beali) in full bloom as long ago as December 20. The winter days in France have ..read more
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Welcome, Stranger, part two. French, part two
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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3M ago
I recently moved to France from America, as I have written in earlier essays. Many Americans are annoyed at the subtlety of the French language. I embrace it, but some people try to find work-arounds.  One example is gender. As someone once said, every French noun is either a girl or a boy, and you’d better not get them mixed up. There are some patterns but no clear rules to distinguish them. In Spanish, nouns ending with -a are usually feminine, and nouns ending with -o are usually masculine. There are a few exceptions, such as la mano, the hand. But in French there are no general rules ..read more
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Welcome, Stranger, part one. French, part one.
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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3M ago
This is my last essay this year, but I will continue the series in 2024. As I said in my previous essay, I have just moved to Strasbourg, France. It is a relief to be here, where life is just not as dangerous as in America. In America, there may be more guns than people. And in America, if you need a bottle of Jardiance pills for diabetes, you will have to pay $800, even if you have Medicare and supplemental insurance. In France, it will be a long time before I qualify for French health care, but even if I have to buy pills for myself, it won’t be any freaking $800. But meanwhile, I am going t ..read more
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My New Science Education Career
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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3M ago
As Fluff told you in the previous essay, I have moved to Strasbourg, France. I was really relieved to get here, and could not have done it without extensive help from my daughter and French son-in-law. They had almost everything ready for us, and are helping us with the rest. I joked that I was going to be a full-time grandpa. But, as it turns out, that is mostly what is happening. I had fantasies about traveling in Europe, at least in the “Schengen zone” where the only thing you need is a European passport. Not all Schengen countries are in the European Union, with a common currency, but they ..read more
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Similarities and Differences: The Tenth Message from Fluff the Cottonwood
Honest Ab : Evolution and Related Topics
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4M ago
Fluff the cottonwood here again. My ninth message was the most recent post. I just heard from Stan. He wanted me to tell all of you that he has now finished his permanent relocation to France. You will be hearing directly from him in the near future. Since Stan is a botanist, one of the first things he did was to start learning European trees. He has not had much direct experience yet, as the leaves were falling when he arrived, and have now all fallen. But he wants to be ready for hiking in the mountains with his French family—the parents, uncles, and cousins on his son-in-law’s side—in the s ..read more
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