In the course of writing a non-fiction children’s book on the mutiny on the Bounty, I recently made the acquaintance of someone I’m sure I should have already known about: Sir Joseph Banks. Banks, who died 188 years ago last Thursday, was a remarkable scientist (though the word wasn’t in use at that time) whose …
Tag: history
The remarkable life of Sir Joseph Banks
In the course of writing a non-fiction children’s book on the mutiny on the Bounty, I recently made the acquaintance of someone I’m sure I should have already known about: Sir Joseph Banks. Banks, who died 188 years ago last Thursday, was a remarkable scientist (though the word wasn’t in use at that time) whose …
The green fairy loses her mystique
It was called “the Green Fairy” Among the bohemian artists and writers of late 19th-century Paris, it took on legendary status for its supposed ability to enhance consciousness and bring on s inspiring hallucinations. Its strange reputation was only enhanced when, in the early 20th century, country after country in Europe banned its production in …
The past through the Web
This week’s (and the second-last–it’s wrapping up at the end of this month) CBC Web column… *** “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,” author L.P. Hartley famously wrote to begin his 1953 novel The Go-Between. And like most foreign countries, while we might not want to live there, we often …
Nature Number 1 revisited
Just over 138 years ago, on Thursday, November 4, 1869, the prestigious science journal Nature published its first issue. Now Nature’s entire archives have been digitized and made available online. (Not for free, alas: although you can browse the contents, you have to pay for complete articles.) Back in 1991, when I was communications officer …
Nature puts its archives online!
This is cool: the great science magazine Nature is putting its entire archives, all the way back to issue one, number one in 1869 (which I wrote a column about years ago when I came across a facsimile copy at the Saskatchewan Science Centre) online. You can browse it to see what’s in each issue, …
Lest We Forget: Remembrance Day resources on the Web
This week’s CBC Web column… **** Most flowers are dead this time of year, but there’s one that only blooms in November: the poppy of Remembrance Day. King George V created Remembrance Day in 1919 in memory of members of the armed forces who were killed during war. But it’s hard to remember a war …
Smarter than the average Harvard senior!
I got 51 right out of 60 on this quiz about American history, government and politics, for an 85 percent average, and most of the questions I missed I don’t feel too badly about, although there were a couple where, when I read the correct answers, I felt extremely “Duh!” The quiz has been in …
Favorite space photos
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, New Scientist has assembled a stunning slideshow of the favorite space-related photos of a group of scientists, astronauts, artists and space entrepreneurs.
Candle on the water
Download the audio version.Get my column as a podcast. *** Lighthouse keeping has always sounded like a romantic occupation to me. As a kid, I even won honorable mention in a creative writing contest with a story featuring a lighthouse keeper. Of course, being a prairie boy, I had never actually even been in a …
Prosthetics
Humans are amazing creatures, but we aren’t invulnerable, and every so often, we lose a piece of ourselves to accident, attack or disease: a finger, a toe, a hand, a foot, or even an entire limb. And sometimes, of course, due to a genetic problem, we’re even born without a particular appendage. This is hardly …
Lookie what I found…
…on Amazon.ca: the cover art for my upcoming book Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw! It must be getting close.
My latest live walk and vlog
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