Book Reflection: Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery (Part II)

Book Review Part I here. Conveniently for me, I had finished Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery, a professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, shortly before The New York Times published a relevant article, "Farmers Put Down the Plow for More Productive Soil". This article on modern no-till farming …

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Book Reflection: Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery (Part I)

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery of the University of Washington was simply a book on a library shelf among four other soil tomes. That was all the library had to offer for my self-education effort for the UN’s International Year of Soils. Fine. The “erosion of civilizations” part suggested something epic. The …

For the Health of a Good Mind is a Good Book

The other day I embarked on yet another trip to the library. Yes, I’m a book nerd. However, instead of searching upstairs in my usual hub of nonfiction shelves I investigated the downstairs room of books-to-be-abandoned for $1 to $2 each. It was sad. Sometimes I check shelves to reread certain books that I grew …

The Joy of Journal Articles

Journal articles can be a real challenge to read. I was fortunate through my undergraduate program to read relatively simple plant ecology articles that involved basic statistics and little jargon—whatever jargon there was, the meaning was easy to infer and so did not require a graduate-level understanding. However, not all sciences appeal to logic and …

Virginia Sneezeweed

Imported from first blog: Peregrination Notebook. I came across an interesting journal article.  Southeastern Naturalist published a study by Rhonda L. Rimer and James W. (Bill) Summer called "Range and Ecology of Helenium virginicum in the Missouri Ozarks".  It seemed like it wouldn't have heavy statistics, so I gave it a shot. Helenium virginicum, also known …