Storm petrels are crazy little oceanic birds that often “hop” on the water’s surface. Nobody knows why. It’s a difficult thing to study–the birds are doing this behavior in the middle of the ocean. Do they perform this behavior to save energy via weight support? Do they use their feet as an “anchor” in high wind? We wanted to know […]
Bijenteelt met Mohamed (Beekeeping with Mohamed)
Paige and I recently had the opportunity to work with Mohamed, a professional beekeeper (“imker” in Dutch) with over 300 hives scattered throughout the Netherlands. Mohamed came to the Netherlands from Syria ten years ago. Today he has a thriving business selling honey and beeswax, teaching beekeeping, renting his bees as crop pollinators, and raising queens. On this day, Mohamed […]
The QHPM Scientific Framework
Many scientists, including me, struggle to ask interesting questions. In part, I think it’s because we are not taught an explicit framework for asking good questions. For example, a simple web search of the “scientific method” turns up dozens of various techniques, all of which are aimed squarely at elementary school students or laypeople. How does one go from “making […]