The Eighteenth Elephant

There are basic facts about the living world that we learn when very young. One is that mammals and birds are warm-blooded. More technically, mammals and birds fall into the category of endotherms, organisms that use internally-g...

Once again, highlights of the books I read in the past year, including a tale told by a beech marten, memoirs by people much older than me, and a recurring theme of work. (Previous years:

On a Sunday evening in March, nine months ago, I sat on an airport floor in Los Angeles staring at my laptop, attending an online meeting of the University of Oregon’s faculty union, facing the possibility of going o...