Well, it would live-up to the LB theme song lyric that it would be an 'exciting and new' experience.

Good news in my congressional district. We are looking forward to a change.

Porcupine eating grass

Porcupine crossing a meadow.

The toad trilling grows
Three porcupines graze new grass
Warm west winds bring rain

#poetry 🌿🦊

Even Jesus wanted just a little more time
When he was walking Spanish down the hall

Poem text At Sixty-four Tom A. Langen At sixty-four I ski slowly Not yet old But I see it In the distance Like those snow-bowed pines My skis slide Down the trail Gliding away Before I clip-in A slow pace And long trail Leave time to think Afternoon shadows Lengthen like memory On a melting glacier A ski was found Two-thousand years old I dream an old man Or grey-crowned woman Placed it there A grateful offering For one more winter

#poetry

For National Poetry Month
10 April 2026
At Sixty-four, by Tom A. Langen
www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/5...
#poetry

Snowy lawn, bare snow-covered trees. Snow falling.

Alt text

A beautiful April day.
View outside my office window.

Genocide as a prime-time TV special.
It doesn't get any darker.

And we in the US are all complicit.

MAGA will have a fitting temple for their god.

The Downward Spiral of the NSF’s GRFP (opinion) Under the Trump administration, the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program has strayed from its historic mission of funding the most meritorious candidates regardless of ST...

The NSF GRFP funds some of the most promising STEM students for their first 3yrs of graduate training. Always highly competitive, GRFP awards dropped to only 10% of applicants, and 5% of life science. And its administration has become a mess. 🧪#AcademicSky

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Predicting Road Encounter Hotspots for Infrequently Detected Species Using Opportunistic Data: A Case Study With Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) The article focuses on ways of identifying important road encounter locations of a rare species, Blanding's Turtle Emydoidea blandingii, using haphazardly collected data, as is usually the case with ...

New paper dropped in Ecology & Evolution. Congratulation to Sean Jackson and Ally Burrows on their first peer-reviewed paper! 🌍🌱🐍🌿
authors.wiley.com/index.html/a...

Alt text (sorry, forgot to do it): bald eagle standing on ice about 20 m from an otter that is oriented at it, while holding a fish in its mouth.

Highlight of the drive to work: Eagle vs. Otter.
In the end, the otter left the remains of its fish on the ice, and the eagle cleaned up the scraps. 🌿🦉🦊

He was a giant. Not always right, but he got people thinking about the right things.

I had brunch with him (and Gretchen Daily) on a terrace in Costa Rica, in the 1990s. He was an amiable, gracious, and engaging table partner - it is a treasured memory.

Three weeks ago,
I skied this road.
Five bird species then,
Twenty-one today.

Under the thin coating
Of the maple snow,
Spring will soon erupt,
Like uncorking
A shaken bottle
Of sparkling champagne.

#poetry

Snow covered lane through the woods.

March’s maple snows:
Slushy, fluffy,
Ephemeral.

Beige rotten ice
Still coats the marsh.
Swans trumpet duets,
Bachelor redwing flocks
Chatter in the reeds,
Raven pairs make weird cries
As they circle overhead.

Biodiful Etude de la perception humaine de la biodiversité. Studying human perception of biodiversity.

Here is an interesting 10-min survey, based on image comparisons, on how people perceive forests.
www.biodiful.org#/forest

Please please read this from the archbishop of Chicago

www.archchicago.org/statement/-/...

Article featuring research from my former students and myself, including some quotes from an interview with me.
🌎🌿🦤

Vaccination rates low in St. Lawrence County - North Country Now Vaccination rates in St. Lawrence County in 2025 fell close to statewide averages for polio and measles, mumps, and rubella, but data recently released by the state Department of Health suggests that ...

Conservative religious beliefs, MAGA sentiment, and ignorance of long-term health risks from 'childhood diseases' for many community members are making my county at high risk for an outbreak of avoidable infectious diseases.

www.northcountrynow.com/stories/vacc...

The Greek concept of hubris remains as relevant now as it was 2500 years ago.

Research indicates that there is an uptick in industrial and home accident injuries and vehicle collisions after a time change, which lasts for up to a week, mainly caused by fatigue and physiological stress produced by disruption of the circadian sleep cycle.

Cameroon’s decade of conflict leaves apes and conservationists in peril In August 2025, Louis Nkembi, founder of conservation NGO ERuDeF, was abducted by militia fighters in Cameroon’s Lebialem Highlands. He was held for two weeks, hidden in a secret location inside a…

Armed conflict in Cameroon’s anglophone regions has engulfed protected forests home to great apes.

Violence blocks conservation work as displaced people and militias move into forests to survive. Scientists are turning to local citizen scientists to keep monitoring wildlife.

Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”

Some scientists reflected on their values and said no.

www.science.org/content/arti...

‘The way we love them in life is the way we love them in death’: a Gullah Geechee community fights for their cemetery In a win for the Gullah Geechee people on St Helena Island in South Carolina, access to a long-used cemetery has been restored

I have fond memories of this community. I did my stateside Peace Corps training at Penn Center on the island, long before it was declared a national monument. I did a homestay with a nearby family. It's a very special place.

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/fe...

It amazes me to think that I have actually seen the largest animal species that has ever lived on earth, the blue whale, and the most massive tree species that ever lived, the giant sequoia.

Some of them played on the same college team. I know - I taught them.

Dancer in the Dark. Bjork wasted in a ridiculous, degrading story. Breaking the Waves pissed me off, DithD made me mad. Lars von Trier's whole jam is to cast terrific women actors in degrading roles within ludicrously plotted films.