Biotech Plants hear the sound of the honeybee and up the sugar content of their pollen quickly. Hadany’s team looked at evening primroses (Oenothera drummondii) and found that within minutes of sensing vibrations from pollinators’ wings, the plants temporarily increased the concentration of sugar in their flowers’ nectar. In effect, the flowers themselves served as…
I attended FenCon 2019 and went to a couple of panels by science fiction and fantasy authors that I thought had useful information for writers. One of those panels was Extraordinary Creatures. The panelists Julie Czerneda, with 17 science fiction and 3 fantasy novels Amber Royer, with 2 comic science fiction novels William Ledbetter, an author…
I attended FenCon 2019 and went to a couple of panels by science fiction and fantasy authors that I thought had useful information for writers. The leaders of the discussion were Kathleen O’Brien and Melanie Unruh. When has this idea been done? Quantum Leap Voyagers Star Gate To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, about…
Metaphors, as I have mentioned before, can be an interesting place to get ideas. In another life, I wrote about Metaphors with links to metaphor-related content: 13 centuries of metaphors metaphors of fear what does anger taste like? educational metaphors how our brains use metaphors
I live in a town with a prairie dog reservation. While I am opposed to reservations, I am grateful that someone thought we might actually succeed in wiping these animals out–like we have done other species. Last month I saw a prairie dog in the neighbor’s yard. My friend asked if I was sure it…
While learning Bahasa Malaysia, I have discovered that some birds are metaphors in their language. The children’s dictionary says “owl” in English, for example, but the Malaysian translation is two words: XX bird. Owl is “ghost bird” literally. What would it mean to be a ghost bird? What does a ghost bird do that other…
Language Learning I am in the process of learning Bahasa Malaysia. I don’t live in Malaysia. I have only visited once, for two weeks. I don’t know if I will ever be able to return. Despite that, even before my trip, I was determined to learn the language. I visited the state of Penang. The…
I went looking for African Mythical animals and I found several. Mostly I wanted to find ones which, like Bernard Most’s creatures, were combinations. However, I did not find a lot of those. The ones listed below are the ones I thought were the most interesting or credible. I did skip a few legendary creatures…
My reading list is getting longer. It feels like the more I read, the more I have to read. Books I need to purchase to read, all winners of the Caldecott: 2019: Hello Lighthouse illustrated and written by Sophie Blackall (Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.) 2018: Wolf in the Snow by Matthew…
I purchased an “uncorrected partial proof/cover not final” of Emily Arnold McCully’s book She Did It! 21 Women Who Changed the Way We Think. It said Caldecott Medal Winner on the cover. So a book that hadn’t yet come out or even finished proofing won the Caldecott? (See update at the end of this post.) I…
