Last Chance to See
cwilcox | May 2, 2010Jerry Coyne, the author of Why Evolution is True, recently held a contest. The rules were simple:
Please recommend one nonfiction book that you think everyone should read, and explain in no more than three sentences why we should read it. The book need not be about science, though those entries are welcome too. The only books excluded from this contest are mine and Darwin's Origin, which has been done to death.
Well, the winner has been announced, and the book everyone should read is...
Last Chance to See By Douglas Adams.
I'm not surprised - I've been telling you all this for years. No…
grrlscientist | October 5, 2009tags: kakapo, Strigops habroptilus, conservation, endangered species, humor, Stephen Fry, Mark Carwardine, Last Chance to See, streaming video
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine head to the ends of the earth in search of animals on the edge of extinction.
In New Zealand the travellers make their way through one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world. They are on a journey to find the last remaining kakapo, Strigops habroptilus, a fat, flightless parrot which, when threatened with attack, adopts a strategy of standing very still indeed.
This behavior is not uncommon among birds…
cwilcox | September 2, 2009Sure, there's the cute accent. There's the funny hats. There's the feeling of intellectual superiority when it comes to humor. There's even the fact that I could ignore painful dental visits without becoming socially ostracized. But mostly, I occasionally want to be British because of things like this:
Last Chance to See, BBC2, from Sunday 6 September, 8pm
Mark has joined forces with Stephen Fry to present a new series about threatened species, as inspired by the best-selling book which Mark wrote some 20 years ago with Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See.
The six-part series - which is…
cwilcox | May 25, 2009I'm sure most of you are aware that today is a truly special holiday. It's a day where we can honor those who have come before and done a great service to us - one single remembrance of those who have fallen before their time and the contributions they've made to us all.
Of course, I'm referring to Towel Day.
I presume you all have carried a towel with pride today. If you haven't, you are missing out. As the Hitchhiker's guide explains:A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around…