nature Archives - neal umphred dot com

bone wars, rock-star scientists, and runaway egos

May 2, 2020January 8, 2016 by Neal

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES for discovering new dinosaur species—hundreds of them! Allosaurus! Brontosaurus! Stegosaurus! Triceratops! Bloody reptiles with wings! Grate Grommett’s Balls of Fire, there were birds with teeth! What was next? What a heady, marvelous time it must have been to be a scientist! Yet it was arguably the worst of times for establishing respect for scientists and the reasonably new fields of paleontology and comparative anatomy. READ MORE

not your typical african grey parrot

May 2, 2020December 23, 2015 by Neal

I MET THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS in the last month of the last year of the last century. I was 47 and Berni was, well, let’s say younger. People who know us now think we’re a perfect match, a ‘natural’ couple. But it wasn’t always so—especially not in the beginning, when I was gaga over her but she was considerably less than gaga over me. READ MORE

“shazam” with a small “s” and no exclamation mark

April 26, 2018November 8, 2015 by Neal

FIRST THERE IS A MOUNTAIN then there is no mountain then there is. I had made this walk a hundred times before today but today was extraordinary, but then every day is extraordinary.

So, I walked as I always do and always did.

So, I walked past the many telephone poles on 112^th Avenue NE.

So, I walked past one of the many telephone poles on 112^th Avenue NE. READ MORE

ken crawford and barnard 33

May 3, 2018March 28, 2015 by Neal

IF YOU KNOW NOTHING about astronomy and galactic formation and nebulae, you still probably know about the Horsehead Nebula. The gorgeous image of that mass of dirt and debris above was taken by Ken Crawford in 2011. He took this photo from his backyard observatory in Rancho Del Sol Camino, the image taking twenty hours of exposure and seven different filters! READ MORE

FAVORITE QUOTES

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. We should, therefore, claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." – Karl Popper

"So long as opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses instability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old." – John Stuart Mill

“A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision.” – Edward Gibbon

"Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind." – Virginia Woolf

“When you speak truth to power, power fights back." – Alexandria Octavia-Cortez

"Time is a created thing. To say, ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’” ~ Lao Tzu

"Clearly, any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have length, breadth, thickness, and duration." – H.G. Wells

"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." –Albert Einstein

"Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it." – M. Scott Peck

"The future has a way of arriving unannounced." – George F. Will

"Right now, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before." – Steven Wright

“How did it get so late so soon?” ― Dr. Seuss

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.” – Philip K. Dick

"While all acronyms are initialisms, most initialisms are not acronyms." – Q (lol)

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble—it's what you know that just ain't so." – Mark Twain

"I don't trust anybody I'm not close enough to kill." – Kelly Burkhardt

"I have lived with many Zen masters, all of them cats." – Eckhart Tolle