Trending Topics
Mushroom Madness 
Fungi can cure or kill, nourish life, and also decompose it back into soil. Fossil evidence for fungi is limited, but the ability to analyze molecular data has led to revelations about the evolution of this extraordinary family of...
Fool’s Gold: The Myth of Tiburcio Vasquez 
“And still of a winter’s night, they say,  when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon  tossed upon cloudy seas,    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight  over the purple moor,    A...
Billions in Flight: Migratory Birds 
Autumn doesn’t officially begin until the equinox on September 22, but all across North America birds are already on the wing—billions of them. Migration times and destinations vary based on the species and variables like weather and food sources—some...
One-Room Schoolhouse 
Back to school. A hundred years ago in Topanga, it would have been on foot—and often barefoot—to the little, red, one-room schoolhouse by the creek in the bend of the dirt road.  Public education in California was still relatively...
Books & Such

Spy Games 

British intelligence officer Kim Philby spent nearly his entire career as a double agent (from 1934 to 1963), in the employ of the Soviet Union. A bona-fide historical account of his enduring double life is told by journalist and...
Books & Such

1865 

Discussions of modern political divisions in the United States often include comparisons to the most divisive moment in the country’s history, the years leading up to the American Civil War (1861-1865). The suggestion here is that we should probably...
Books & Such

On Hume 

In The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well, independent scholar Julian Baggini proposes the idea – upon the inspiration of eighteenth century Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) – that we might...
Books & Such

Flying Fish 911 

The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.* Mankind has transformed the...