Nikita Daryanani is a summer intern at NCSE. She recently graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning, and is interested in global climate change and environmental justice. If you’ve ever been snorkeling or diving (or watched Finding Nemo…
Last week, I unleashed my inner Ansel Adams and gave you a dramatically lit fossil with distinct ridges. What was it? A trilobite, of course! Trilobites are arthropods, making them close cousins (evolutionarily speaking) to living groups such as insects, crustaceans, and spiders. They first…
NCSE is delighted to congratulate Richard B. Katskee, a member of NCSE's board of directors, on his appointment as the legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. A graduate of Yale Law School, Katskee began his legal career at the law firm Mayer Brown, after which he…
I’m serving up some arty photography this week! I feel that this looks a bit M. C. Escher-esque— as if the ridges are morphing into birds. Alternatively, it could be a cool relief map showing a basin and range mountain formation. Or it could be none of those things—but it is one thing, an…
July was hot. It was the hottest July on record, but more than this: it was the warmest month ever recorded on Earth. Let that sink in a moment. The first seven months of 2015 were all record breakers, and 2015 is on track to take the record for warmest recorded year. As Paris Hilton likes to say…
I was visiting Chicago, that toddling town, in late July and early August, 2015, and I was inexorably attracted to the Field Museum of Natural History—one of the world’s greatest natural history museums, according to my guidebook, as well as the permanent home of a T. rex named Sue. (…
NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of the second edition of Carl Zimmer and Douglas J. Emlen's Evolution: Making Sense of Life (Roberts and Company, 2015). The preview consists of a part of chapter 14, "Macroevolution." "The history of biodiversity — the processes and…
The best thing about NCSE’s Grand Canyon trip is the rafters. Also, the Canyon itself. And the food. And the amazing guides who run the boats and cook the meals and lead the hikes and know every bit of river lore you could desire. Among the best things about NCSE’s Grand Canyon trip are…
We laughed, we cried, we felt a thousand emotions. And when the dust finally settled, we were left with the usual pile of dead anti-science copycat bills, often from the usual players. We're looking at you, Missouri and Oklahoma. The tally was nearly identical to 2014's. Four bills targeted…