Monday, May 23, 2011

Killer chimps, greener goods, cheaper gas and big art

Are you ready for this week's article links?

First up, the latest two Extinction Countdown columns for Scientific American:

Updates from the Brink: A Plan for Bats, Oil-Spill Penguins and Branson's Lemurs

Ugandan Chimpanzees May Be Hunting Red Colobus Monkeys into Extinction


Next, three new "green living" blogs for Green Hands USA:

California & New Jersey Are Tops in Solar

Are You Still Willing to Pay More for Greener Goods?

Got an Attic? Save on Cooling Costs with a Solar-Powered Attic Fan


Next up, two new pieces for Mother Nature Network...

Christo's big art vs. bighorn sheep

Swarms of parakeets invade London



... and a Yahoo! Green reprint of an earlier MNN story:

When's the best time to buy gas?

That's it for this week, but I've been working my fingers to the bone on several new features that will appear throughout June. Until then, see you next week!

Monday, May 16, 2011

Women in engineering, bear bile, and cute baby aardvarks

Another week, another wide range of article topics!

There was only one Extinction Countdown article for Scientific American this week, because last week had three. But this one really got people talking:

Illegal Trade in Bear Bile Flourishes throughout Asia

Two new feature articles appeared over at Today's Engineer. These were great fun to research and pull together:

Stemming the Tide: New Study Examines Why Women Leave Engineering

Career Focus: Biomedical Engineering

I'm working on a few big pieces for Mother Nature Network. Here are two short ones that appeared last week:

Abandoned baby aardvark pulls through with zookeepers' help

Bone-grafting product Augment receives positive recommendation from FDA

And finally, here are this week's blog posts from Green Hands USA:

An Incandescent Bulb that Saves Energy?

5 Tips to Reduce Asthma

Seattle Named Most Walkable City

This week will bring a lot more new stuff, plus a rare in-person appearance for me as I sign my books and comics at the Maine Comics Arts Festival in Portland. I hope to see some of you there!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Wolves, Cicadas & Angry Birds

I feel pretty lucky right now. All of last week's articles were extremely popular, and all were fun (or at least challenging) to write. You can't go wrong there.

This week had three Extinction Countdown columns for Scientific American, instead of the usual two, but there was some breaking news (the wolf story) that needed covering:

Extinction Likely for World's Rarest Bear Subspecies

Wolves Lose Out to Politics, Removed from Endangered Species List

Possum-killing poison helps protect New Zealand parrot


Both of my stories for Mother Nature Network last week stayed on their top ten most-read list for several days:
The dog that helped take down Osama bin Laden

13-year cicadas wake up, prepare to swarm in Georgia and 11 other states


Green Hands USA has had to cut back a bit while they work on closing some necessary sponsorship deals, but if the readership counts on last week's blogs are any indication, that shouldn't be a problem for long:

6 Simple Ways to Green Your Dinner

Save Energy (and Money) this Summer with these Tips from the EPA

Angry Birds Game to Help Endangered Birds

Macy's: No More Unsustainable Hangers!


This week should bring a few new features, as well as more of the same. Stay tuned for more!

Monday, May 2, 2011

Audubon, Frogs, and stuff you missed

Another fun week was topped off by appearing on TV several times on Saturday, not to promote my articles but the work of my local Lions Club. Those brief interviews don't appear to have been archived online, but all of my writing was, so here are this week's article links.

First up, my usual two endangered species columns for Scientific American:

Low genetic diversity, local resentment threaten great Indian bustard

Central American crocodile recovers and crawls off endangered species

Next, a fun piece for Mother Nature Network, based on the 226th birthday of naturalist John James Audubon (a day that also happened to have been my own birthday):

5 things you didn't know about John James Audubon


This week also saw the usual six "green tips" blogs for Green Hands USA. Some of these are for events that have already passed, but I tried to make them timeless:

It's Arbor Day: Let's Celebrate Trees [this was very popular]

Frogs Need Your Help Today [my third year in a row covering the annual Save the Frogs Day]

Kajeet: Go Green with Refurbished Phones

Blue Book Picks Greenest Cars of 2011

Which Supermarket Sells the Most Sustainable Seafood?

Five Things to do AFTER Earth Day




Finally, here's a bit of humor I did for my own blog. This got re-tweeted a number of times. I think you'll get a kick out of it:

10 new names for 'Global Warming'