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SPACE INVADERS

SPACE INVADERS

The aliens are back.
Just when I thought they were through with me they reappeared, sliding silently through walls that appear solid (but the quantum physicists know better). Suddenly they are everywhere. Staring at me from the rim of a glass when I open the cupboard. Calmly observing me as I sleep from my sweetheart’s framed photo on the bedside table. These aliens aren’t otherworldly galactic hitchhikers, though. They’re Earthlings. Members of the Pentatomoidea clan (aka shield bugs).

LONG-STEMMED

LONG-STEMMED

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Daddy longlegs are the jazz cats of the arachnid world! This realization came to me as I watched a single backlit note bebop across the asphalt path in front of me. A soundtrack of jazz piano greats immediately began to play in my head — Willie...

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Have you ever listened to the mesmerizing serenade of field crickets (Gryllus spp.) on a crisp autumn evening and wondered why they're doing that? I mean, the mercury's definitely headed south, the nights are going to become pretty chill, and...

WEBMASTERS

WEBMASTERS

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Enter the term "engineering marvels" into your favorite search engine and you'll see there's some debate over the Top 10 but several projects always seem to hit the mark, such as Dubai's Palm Islands, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, the...

SOCIAL NETWORK

SOCIAL NETWORK

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Mark Zuckerberg would not be one of 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world without the help of wasps. I mean the six-legged kind (whether or not two-legged WASPs should get any of the credit is something for attorneys to discuss...

DAMSELS AND DRAGONS (BUT NO PRINCE)

DAMSELS AND DRAGONS (BUT NO PRINCE)

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Once upon a time there was a damsel(fly). [Imagine, if you will, a bucolic Disneyesque soundtrack of flutes and piccolos in the background.] She (or maybe he -- this is a modern fairly tale) explored the lovely little pond from which s/he had...

SPARKS

SPARKS

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Walking through the park at dusk the other night, I saw a single spark. Then another. Soon there were too many to count, hovering in the airspace between my chin and my ankles, lighting my way past the lake, the band stand, and the Park House....

SPINELESS SAMURAI

SPINELESS SAMURAI

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD When the annual cicadas emerge each summer their tymbals vibrate at arboreal drumming circles all over town.  The beats bounce and reverberate against hard city surfaces; during a crescendo, I swear I can feel the buildings and sidewalks pulsing...

IDENTITY THIEF

IDENTITY THIEF

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we’re twenty years into the Information Age so I’m pretty sure everyone in this courtroom knows that, to quote a famous New Yorker cartoon, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” The anonymity baked into...