Inner Nature: Photosynthetic and light-harvesting animals
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
Photosynthesis – a term that pretty much everyone understands – uses sunlight, carbon dioxide, water, and the light-harvesting green molecule, chlorophyll, to make sugars and release oxygen. Photosynthesis is carried out by free-living cyanobacteria, as well as plants and algae which contain chloroplasts, which are really just internal cyanobacteria, inside...
Becoming The Best U: Advice on love and dating
By Nancy Plummer, Columnist, The Times
Question: I’m a widow finally ready to date but I’ve never tried online dating and am not sure of the modern expectations. My question is, who pays for the first date?
Abbey – Wayne, PA
Dear Abbey,
I am so sorry for your loss. It takes immense strength to navigate widowhood and to put yourself out there again. I am very happy for you!
This is...
Inner Nature: Party Season
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
Tipple. The season is the reason. Well, with party season behind us now, let’s delve into the ubiquity of alcohol during the holidays. It is considered a conversational lubricant and socially acceptable to drink in a group setting, but it is considered a problem when someone drinks alone without an interlocutor, or for the purpose of getting drunk. It can...
ReFirement at Any Age: Protect Your Peace
By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times
With all the uncertainties and all of the changes going on in the world, my mantra, my prayer for myself, and for the world is to protect my peace, to protect our peace.
Protecting your peace is essential and of the utmost importance for maintaining mental, emotional, and even physical well-being in a fast-paced, often stressful world. By focusing on...
Inner Nature: Animals of Japan
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
In the fall, I spent a month in Japan. It’s an interesting country geographically, sociologically, and ecologically. Geographically, Japan is a comma-shaped stretch of some 14,125 islands to the east of the Korean peninsula. About 120 are inhabited, and five islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and the tiny southernmost island of Okinawa) host 95% of...
Inner Nature: Good news in science
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
This month, I highlight some of the great things that are happening in the world which science had a hand in delivering. Enjoy.
Klamath dam is down and salmon swim freely upstream for the first time in 100 years.[1]
The mighty Klamath river flows from the Cascade mountains along the Oregon-California and empties into the Pacific Ocean. In 1918, the first dams...
ReFirement at Any Age: Waiting to Exhale
By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times
November is the month we celebrate Thanksgiving which is the gateway to the holiday season. These are all wonderful and comforting things to think about and look forward to, but there is something else that occurs every four years in our country.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about our power as citizens to vote for the candidate of your choice on...
ReFirement at Any Age: Back to a Routine Life
By Gail Supplee Tatum, Columnist, The Times
For some, there are mixed feelings about getting back to a routine life.
Going from carefree living to structured tasks, business as usual, takes concentration and can be challenging.
However, many of us see this adjustment as a recalibration, like a new year and birthdays.
We are creatures of habit and routine, which is essential for quality of life....
Inner Nature: Gene Snatcher
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
In an earlier article[1] I wrote about tardigrades, a ubiquitous and indestructible animal with an extraordinary ability to endure adverse environmental conditions. This superpower is assisted by their entry into a dormant state called “tun”, in which they lose all their water and curl up into a husk. Tardigrades in the tun state can be subjected to boiling,...
Inner Nature: Did life originate at hydrothermal vents?
By Vidya Rajan, Columnist, The Times
The deep ocean floor is a desolate place: a desert with frigid waters, crushing pressures and inky darkness. But in the expansive and featureless wasteland are oases populated by bizarre life forms. These oases are located at hydrothermal vents, which were discovered in the mid-1970s but remained difficult to reach and to study for many decades. Recent technological...
