The sudden en masse appearance of meat-eating, airborne insects with wingspans up to six inches across does not sound like welcome news. Because usually when the topic is bugs and descriptions range from “invasion” to “infestation,” it applies to bad actors: locust swarms that can decimate farm crops, cockroaches that can overrun our living spaces, spongy-moth caterpillars that strip trees of leaves and needles – the list of troublemakers is long.
However, damsels and dragons are exceptions. Damselflies and dragonflies, carnivorous insects in the order Odonata, date back more than 300 million years. [Read more…] about Dragons and Damsels to the Rescue
Greek mythology holds that Zeus punished the murderous tyrant-king Sisyphus by banishing him to Tartarus for eternity, where he has to roll a big rock up a hill, only to have it tumble back down as he nears the top. Big deal – he got off easy.
The idea that plants benefit from kind words, or from speech in general, has roots that go back at least to Charles Darwin, who 
In her poem “
I watched the 1993 film Groundhog Day featuring Bill Murray at least a dozen times. Or maybe it just felt that way. Just as February 2 was on a nonstop loop in the film, this year’s iteration of Groundhog Day is likely to feel roughly the same as all the previous ones.
Back in primary school in the 1970s, we learned about nature’s “food chain.” In this linear model, which I assume was devised by surveyors who normally lay out rail lines and utility corridors, a tiny creature, let’s say a minnow, gets eaten by a bigger 
Some of the most enduring memories of the winter holiday season are those associated with smell.