SpaceX deserves its own post here, to say “YAY!! Congratulations!” for sticking the landing on the barge today. This is my favorite video of the flight so far: http://tinyurl.com/zlcf38g Boo hiss to those who celebrated the four failures and the ones who today (on Twitter, for instance) claimed the landing was just reverse video. No, Read More…
Author: Elizabeth
Writer, photographer, married, mother. Also native plants, wildlife, music, horses, curiosity unlimited, time limited. Pronouns she, her
Done
Well, probably. Sortakinda done. At 1:30 this afternoon, I made my final staggering plunge through the muck and mire to the finish line, having untangled various tangles and discovered yet more typos. I’d been up until 2:30 am Friday morning (NOT, mutter mutter, going out to photograph peak bluebonnets and plains nipple cactus, mutter mutter) Read More…
Fossils
In the previous post I blithely announced that I was finished, done, absolutely and finally done with the structural revisions. This morning, working on temporal nits (the book has day-by-day notation in some places, and Editor had found some of them to be either confusing or obviously wrong–fossils of earlier drafts), I found a great Read More…
Step One + Snippet
Saturday, April 2, I finished the structural parts of the revisions. Now I’m going over the other comments. Stuff has been taken out. Stuff taken out was partly at the request of Editor and partly my initiative, as the changes in structure up to that point made the stuff taken out less organic to the Read More…
Monday Science on Twitter
A few more science accounts to follow on Twitter. Fascinating views of our planet from space, and how these data are used down below: https://twitter.com/NASAEarthData. Fascinating views of dwarf planet Ceres: https://twitter.com/NASA_Dawn. Variety of interesting geological bits and pieces at the US Geological Service account; today it’s induced seismicity. https://twitter.com/USGS Interested in monarch migration? Join Read More…
Implants and Implications
All the Vatta books include characters who have cranial implants that enhance their mental abilities and characters who are opposed to implants as a form of “humodification” that makes the user less human and more machine. Having or not having an implant creates social expectations and has legal implications as well. Not all implants are Read More…
Writer Self-Care, Part One
A recent discussion online on self-care for scientists in academia (@realscientists and #AcademicSelfCare on Twitter) prompted this post. Writers–that is, fiction and nonfiction freelance writers–often have mental/emotional/physical problems that can be helped–if not entirely prevented or cured–by some judicious self-care. But we can forget that when deadlines are knocking on the door (loudly) or the Read More…
In New York City April 1?
My publisher, Penguin Random House, has chosen The Speed of Dark as one of their books to highlight for National Autism Awareness Day, April 1, 2016, in conjunction with Autism Speak’s Light It Up Blue. It will be on display at their headquarters, 1745 Broadway, with some copies to give away. And of course Read More…
Trifling Humor
This is a link to a Storify of Twitter posts yesterday and…it’s hilarious. 7FZrl$Jn602ErEJ(BX Or, if you like long URLs: https://storify.com/lizrothjohnson/biologistspacefacts?utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_source=t.co&utm_campaign=&awesm=sfy.co_a0x2Q&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter
Science Twitter Accounts at SXSW
A list of science accounts on Twitter for SXS. No, I haven’t checked them all out yet, but wow–sure appreciate @laurahelmuth for getting this list together. I’ll be posting the reference a few other places, too. https://twitter.com/laurahelmuth/lists/sciencetwitterforsxsw/members