Understand your world better.
What is this weird belt-like growth on poison oak? Fasciated plants have fascinated humans for thousands of years due to their gnarled and belt-like growth patterns on stems or bizarrely elongated flowers. Fasciation has been documented in over 107 plant … Read more
For perhaps the first time in 80 years the California State Lands Commission, which negotiates and hands out leases for state-owned shoreline property, faced a decision this summer between competing ideas for the same parcel. The commission staff announced at … Read more
If you’ve ever stepped into a certain kind of beach town gift shop on the Northern California coast, you are likely familiar with Josie Iselin’s work: an artist, Iselin creates slim coffee table books filled with detailed, dramatically lit photographs … Read more
As recently as five years ago, it was great to be a herring in the San Francisco Bay. Populations of the small silver fish had declined up and down the West Coast but boomed in the Bay at levels not … Read more
Which species am I most likely to see in a Northern California tidepool, and how can I try to identify them? There is something fascinating about tidepools. They are places of liminality, an in-between world that is neither fully land … Read more
Some of the most conspicuous animals in Northern California tidepools don’t look like animals at all. They resemble flowers more than any animal you’re probably familiar with.
I think I saw a worm swimming in the Bay, what is it? It was mid August in 2015 when I first held one, its long thread like body rolling and pulsing in my hand. Tickled by the anticipation of … Read more
Skunks almost always spray out of sight of humans. A hidden trail camera in Jasper Ridge shows what it looks like.
Urban raccoons are everywhere. Some evidence suggests they’re growing smarter from living in an urban world.
If the snake you encounter looks perturbed, don’t count solely on head shape when you ID it.
