“Okay, let’s do this.” These were my self-directed words of encouragement as I decided to take the right turn and head one final time up the hill of the outer ski loop. I had been keeping my eye on the clock as I had to pick my wife up from the airport in less than …
Plastics: A Problem Reaching Beyond the Space and Time Horizon
This post was printed in The Conversation US last week. In the context of recent efforts to start cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it asks questions about the prospects for genuine plastics recycling. "The ocean is better off without it, of course, but the plastic problem has many more layers than it first …
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The Ethics of Wiping out a Mosquito Species
The latest blog post on the Plastocene reflects on a genetic technology that could eradicate an entire species of malaria-carrying mosquito. It sounds like an ethical no-brainer. Some people, however, are a little more hesitant. "The announcement that a new genetic technology had successfully eradicated a carefully contained population of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes grabbed headlines last week across …
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