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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...
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Googootz!!* 

*Italian slang for zucchini Domesticated squash originated in North America, where various species have been harvested and cultivated for thousands of years. Several different subspecies of Cucurbita pepo, the pumpkin-like ancestor of modern summer squashes, have been found in...
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Coming Full Cycle 

I don’t yet drive but I’ve been driven plenty, and my drivers often subscribe to a creed that goes something like this: The road’s too small for cars and cyclists to coexist. The car is the fastest mode of...
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Birkenstock It to Me 

“Crunchy Topanga hippies wearing their Birkenstocks,” conjures an image of a Topangan, anywhere from 1966 through the present day, enjoying life in comfortable shoes.  I’m sitting here next to the editor of TNT as I write this introduction. I’m...