Iguana poop, Superman's lies and comedy for a cause

It's the last Monday in autumn and I'm snowed in. Ah, Maine...

Anyway, the piles of snow and the frigid temperatures mean I just get to stay inside and write. For you, maybe it means you get to stay in and read some of my articles. Here are the ones that saw print last week.

I'll start this list, as usual, with my Extinction Countdown articles for Scientific American:

Lawsuit to Remove Plant from Endangered Species List Completely Backfires

Tourists Are Giving Endangered Iguanas Diarrhea and High Cholesterol

Sunday Species Snapshot: Cuban Crocodile


Sticking with the endangered species theme, here's my latest brief for Conservation magazine, which appears in their new issue:

A Blobfish Walks into a Bar


And finally, here's a history article, an explainer and a news brief for Mother Nature Network:

Who invented the idea of organic farming and organic food?

Do diamonds really come from coal?

Spill: A new play about the people affected by the Gulf oil spill


Oh, in addition to the stuff that I wrote, the Allegheny Front turned the tables and interviewed me  about the Endangered Species Act. You can read/listen to it here.



That's it for this week. Follow me on Twitter for more links as they go live.

Extinction, Time Travel and a History Lesson

It's cold out. All the more reason to stay inside and write.

Last week brought forth eight new articles -- at least, eight published pieces. Some of those were turned in last week. Other pieces I turned in this week won't appear for a few weeks more. I'm also working on some big assignments that won't see print until maybe next Summer. Yup, I have lots of plates in the air and I love every minute of it.

Anyway, let's start this week's link list with three new Extinction Countdown articles for Scientific American:

Tiny Ohio Catfish Species, Last Seen in 1957, Declared Extinct

Can You Guess Which Country Has the Most Endangered Species?

Sunday Species Snapshot: Fijian Monkey-Faced Bat


The rest of this week's publications all came from Mother Nature Network, where I'm writing a nice mix of news articles, history pieces and explainers. Here are this week's links:

Stephen Hawking invites you to a party for time travelers (that may have already happened)

What we learned from the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history

Should chimpanzees have human rights?

Enneagram: The personality test you've never heard of

Could this easy-to-make material help replace gasoline?


And that's it for this time around. Make sure to follow me on Twitter for more links as they happen, or come back here next Monday for another list.

Okapi, robotics and a horrible history

If it's Monday morning, it must be time for my weekly look back at the articles of the previous seven days. Of course, it was a short week, marked by the Thanksgiving holiday (I hope yours went well; I had pie), so there were fewer articles than usual.

Let's start with my Extinction Countdown articles for Scientific American: 

'Forest Giraffe' Now Endangered: Okapi Populations Drop 50 Percent in 18 Years

Sunday Species Snapshot: Daggernose Shark


Next up, two newsy items for Mother Nature Network:

Extremely tiny robot floats through the air — like a jellyfish

Why the FDA told genetic testing company 23andMe to cease marketing


And finally this week, a horrifying slice of history that was written for MNN but which fit better at their sister site, Treehugger:

Thomas Edison: Inventor, genius ... elephant killer?


In non-article news, the fourth edition of LORE -- the horror-SF-fantasy anthology series for which I serve as contributing editor -- is now available. I hope you'll check it out.

By the way, this weekend marked my seventh anniversary as a freelance writer. I wonder what will happen in year # 8?

Deformed frogs, Asian unicorns and a sex-changing snail

What a great week. I signed the contract for a huge new freelance assignment, moved forward on several others, and wrote some pretty darned good articles. Let's go to the links.

Most of last week's publications appeared in Scientific American, where they hit on three fronts. First there was my usual three Extinction Countdown articles, which covered a wide range of endangered species:

Conservation's Holy Grail: "Asian Unicorn" Sighted in Vietnam

The Incredible Mr./Mrs. Limpet: The Endangered, Sex-Changing Sea Snail

Sunday Species Snapshot: Rothschild’s Giraffe

Then there was my latest article for the print magazine, which is a consolidation of two of my previous Extinction Countdown pieces:

An Endangered Species Act Success: California’s Santa Cruz Cypress

Finally, here's my first non-Extinction article for the SciAm website, a story I am glad that I had the opportunity to cover:

The Good and Bad News about Frog Abnormalities


This week's two other publications came from Mother Nature Network:

New York named America's most walkable city

Puerto Rico's famous bioluminescent lagoon stops glowing


Beyond that published work I have a ton on my plate, including several more articles for SciAm and MNN as well as my usual monthly feature for Today's Engineer and a new piece for Lion magazine. I also just signed the contract for what could be my biggest magazine assignment to date, but I probably won't be able to talk about that publicly for several months yet.

I don't know how many articles will appear online this week, what with the Thanksgiving holiday and all, but you can follow me on Twitter for links as they happen.

How Frustration Led to Last Week's Most Popular Story

Writing about endangered species for a living almost guarantees that I remain in a state of constant frustration. This week that frustration gave birth to one of my most popular articles in recent months. It wasn't the fact that the western black rhino had gone extinct that caused that frustration or my reaction. The western black rhino went extinct years ago but most people in the media -- and the world in general -- didn't seem to notice until this past month. This has led to some truly awful reporting from too many news sites that should have known better. I decided to set the record straight with one of this week's Extinction Countdown articles for Scientific American:

How the Western Black Rhino Went Extinct

That article got tens of thousands of readers, more than I ever expected. Hopefully it will continue to dispel some of the misinformation that has been spread about this extinction.

In other news, here are this week's other two Extinction Countdown articles. The first is feature-length, while the second is a weekend quickie:

Jamaican Iguana Conservation Program Marks 20 Years of Success, Faces Worries about Next 20 Years

Sunday Species Snapshot: Jackass Penguin


This week also saw publication of my latest feature for Today's Engineer. I think this is a particularly important piece and I enjoyed working on it:

Federally Funded Research: The Key to Unexpected (and Valuable) Discoveries


Finally, here are two new articles for Mother Nature Network:

Global warming isn't on 'hiatus'

Scientists invent not 1, not 2, but 3 new 'invisibility cloaks' [This was my favorite headline of the week]


What will this coming week bring? Hopefully it won't involve too much frustration, but we'll see. If it does, maybe I'll turn that into something useful like I did this past week.  Wish me luck!

Rare Cats, Melting Starfish and a Man with Wings

Well, this past week didn't see all that many new publications, but that's only because I have so many in the pipeline. I have more articles in process or pending publication than I can count, so expect a lot more soon.

Meanwhile, here are this week's articles, starting with one article and one shorter post for "Extinction Countdown" over at Scientific American:

Beautiful but Rarely Seen Cat Species Photographed in Borneo

Sunday Species Snapshot: Sociable Lapwing


And here are three short pieces for Mother Nature Network:

Mysterious wasting syndrome is turning West Coast starfish into goo

Bill Gates: Prioritizing worldwide Internet access over human health is 'a joke'

Jetman ascendant: How Yves Rossy learned to fly with four jet engines strapped to his back


This coming week should be a big one. Follow me on Twitter for headlines as they happen and come back here next Monday for another list of links.

Post-Halloween Article Goodies

We don't get many (okay, any) trick-or-treaters in my rural neck of the Maine woods, which may explain my productivity: too much sugar from 50%-off post-Halloween candy.

Anyway, I published a metric tonne of articles last week, so here are the links before I go try to burn off a few thousand calories. We'll start with this week's Extinction Countdown articles for Scientific American:

Halloween Scares: A Graveyard for Extinct Species

How Much Did the U.S. Spend on the Endangered Species Act in 2012?

Sunday Species Snapshot: White-Cheeked Gibbon


Next up, several news items for Mother Nature Network:

Hunting group auctioning off the right to kill an endangered black rhino

Olympic oops: Russia's games aren't as 'zero-waste' as promised

United Nations takes aim at asteroids

New system could predict how climate change will affect future fishing conditions


And finally this time around, the new annual report from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences contains 10 articles by me, all about their latest research. This was in the works for a long time and finally came out last week. Cool stuff.

Okay, that's it for now. Follow me on Twitter for the latest article links as they go live!