Living in the modern world, we are completely surrounded by plastics. I have a plastic water filter, a plastic travel mug, a plastic phone, a plastic water bottle, I am currently typing on a plastic keyboard, and there is even plastic in the material my sweater is made out of.
“ The mountains are calling and I must go.†– John Muir Most days I feel a lot like John Muir, only I think it would be frowned upon if I dropped all my responsibilities to visit mountains and live amongst the trees. While I can't become a mountain man and live in a treehouse,
You may have heard of opioids as the drug that killed Prince, Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and (controversially) Elvis Presley. But my interest came after constantly seeing articles about overdoses all around the country. From that, my perception of opioids as the drugs of the rich and famous started to fade. These drugs affect parents,
“It's going to be a bad year for bugs.†Last month, I was frequently reminded of this expression as a seemingly endless supply of caterpillars feasted happily on the sunflowers from our most recent study. We were in a month-long, losing battle against these numerous and voracious critters! For the past year and a half,
Here is my confession: I have a weakness for raw oysters. Cooked they're tasty, but raw they're sublime. There's just something about that briny, gooey goodness (with just a hint of lemon juice and cocktail sauce, thankyouverymuch) that I can't get enough of. You may have heard the old adage that says never to eat
On every flight, there is a point when you sink below the clouds and a miniature version of the world unfurls before you. This is my favorite part about flying. Right before you land, the plane glides lower and lower and you get to see the world you experience every day from a different angle.
As my avid followers will recall, I ended my previous blog post with a brief discussion on the important distinction between acclimatization and adaptation. That blog post featured an in-depth look at acclimatization using my recent trip to Nepal as an example. For this blog post, I will focus on adaptation. Adaptation has quite a
Large, mysterious bones began to emerge amongst the backhoes and mud caked boots. Construction workers were told to continue digging the reservoir. The development finally halted when a massive, warped tusk confirmed that this was no rancher's bovine cemetery. Reputable scientists flocked to the scene, eager to get their hands dirty. Time was of the
Sustainable eating has been working its way into the mainstream for decades now, but what does it actually mean to eat sustainably? Wikipedia defines a sustainable diet as “one that promotes food sustainability and ecological well-being.†With that vague of a definition, it's no surprise that people are implementing sustainability in their lives in very
This past November two friends and I embarked on the Three Passes Trek, a hiking trail through Nepal that crosses, you guessed it, three mountain passes. The trail experiences drastic elevation changes, ranging anywhere from 9,000 to 17,500 feet. On Day 12 of our travels, I was struggling to fall asleep in Gorakshep, a small
Banner photo credit: Hayley Schroeder As visitors wander through the Georgia State Botanical Garden, a flurry of life swells up to say “Welcome!†Daffodils greet you by the hundreds, insects buzz around your head and cherry blossoms come blushing into bloom. One might call this the perfect spring day…if it wasn't February. While we box
Whether you heard about it in your third grade history class or watched the iconic 1997 James Cameron film, almost everyone knows the story of the doomed luxury liner, Titanic. Trapped in a Murphy's Law situation, the ship sank on the night of April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg in the middle of the
