The Peril of The Seas — Coming to a Coast near You..
I am working on a story which recalls a Sherlock Holmes adventure The Adventure of The Lion's Mane. The detective is his own chronicler in this one because trusty old Watson has become a family…
Millipede Catalyst
Swarms of this cyanide-secreting millipede have entered houses, writhed on railway tracks causing delays, and, in short, made themselves a nuisance in Japan, their host country. But Chamberlinius hualienensis, the arthropod native of Taiwan which…
A rubella-based murder mystery
In 1943, while pregnant with her first child, Hollywood actress Gene Tierney came down with German measles (rubella), contracted during her solo appearance at the now-defunct Hollywood Canteen. (It was very early in the pregnancy…
The Naming of Exoplanets
Last September when I was in Oslo, I sat next to Thierry Montmerle at the banquet hosted by the Norwegian Science Academy. He was the general secretary of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) which had…
Sea Monkeys Churning Waterbodies
When I was a child, I saw these ads for sea monkeys in comic books. I would've liked to have sea monkeys as pets back then. A "bowlful of happiness," that was also easy to…
Patna to Poughkeepsie
A while ago, I emailed the writer Amitava Kumar of Patna who teaches literature at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. When I email a writer, it is because: I like their work, their writing has touched…