Quantcast
Channel: Rob Dunn » Rob Dunn
Browsing all 10 articles
Browse latest View live

Giving Thanks: Scientists Seek World Record for Most Pieces of Used Toilet...

Once the diversity of the microbial world is catalogued… it will make astronomy look like a pitiful science. – Julian Davies For Neil Armstrong, the giant step for mankind was taken on the moon. For...

View Article



What If God Were a Maggot?

Brother of the blowfly… no one gets to heaven without going through you first. –Yusef Komunyakaa Sixteen years ago, my wife and I, along with our friend Audrey were standing outside a guesthouse near...

View Article

Chapter 8. Grafting the Tree of LIfe

When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. – Jonathan Swift (excerpted–and updated–from Every Living Thing in honor of...

View Article

11 Ways to Avoid Answering a Question: A Year in Review

When my grandfather was alive, each of his children and grandchildren was responsible for reporting to him about the world in which they worked. He loved knowledge; he always had. As the only scientist...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Remembering Lynn Margulis

On November 22nd, 2011 Lynn Margulis died. Last week Carl Woese died. In their deaths, we lost two of the most radical visionaries of a generations, of several generations really. Last week I posted an...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Sieve Hypothesis: Clever Study Suggests an Alternate Explanation for the...

You have a stomach. I have a stomach. It is one of our few universals. Humans, mate, sing, talk, and raise their children in many different ways, but we’ve all got stomachs. The question is why....

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

A Wild Bet: Can Inoculating Newborns with Innocuous Strains of Bacteria Save...

Recently, one of Paul Cezanne’s missing paintings was rediscovered. The painting shows Paulin Paulet, a gardener on Cezanne’s family estate, looking at his poker cards. Cezanne painted Paulet as part...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

New Revelations about the Biodiversity of Belly Buttons

When it comes to science, I have the patience of a rabid fox, trapped in a cage, in front of which a wounded rabbit is standing. My family, the folks in my lab and the need for sleep balance this...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Writer Who Built the World’s First Engine-Powered Submarine

A man cannot one day just decide to build a submarine, much less the first powered submarine, much less if that man is a writer. Yet that is just what Narcis Monturiol did. As a young firebrand of the...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Getting Dirty for Good Health

THERE’S A FOREST NOT FAR FROM MY HOME where I like to take my kids. They swing on vines, balance on fallen trees and turn rocks. They look, prod and then gather or catch much of what they find. When...

View Article
Browsing all 10 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images