By Dr. Robert Thorson Each Thanksgiving I find something to be thankful for that most people miss. This year, my gratitude is for a new discovery about our beautiful blue planet. For the past few days, I’ve been reading Florence William’s new book about the medicinal value of nature. For her, “The Nature Fix” (the […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson When I began teaching at UConn in 1984, I started a file of state newspaper clippings for my earth sciencecourses. One of the first things I learned was that more than 6,000 acres of wetland on the Connecticut shore was converted to dry land prior to the 1970s by ditching, draining […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The deafening crescendo of political din is done. What a relief! Perhaps now we will be able to hear the cries from the other animal species on Earth that didn’t have a chance to vote. Assuming that you will not be moved to compassion by bug-eyed insects, slimy mollusks or slithering […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson God must want us to have cellphone conversations. How do I know? Because the beautiful landmark steeple of Storrs Congregational Church at the gateway to the University of Connecticut campus will soon be leased as a cellphone tower. What will the good Lord think of next? Move over, church bells. Make […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Today at 11:28 a.m., our annual descent into darkness will be over. The following days will be brighter, longer and warmer. Though this astronomical turnabout is the psychological bedrock of our seasonal celebrations, American mass culture treats it either indifferently or as something pagans do. Last week, and for the first […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Aesop’s Fables are allegories from ancient Greece in which animals often stand in for humans. Had these stories been gathered farther north, they might have included one about a solitary goose frozen into a pond. To “The Hare and the Tortoise” and “The Fox and the Grapes,” I would add the […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Mushroom clouds. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How terrible. How strangely beautiful. Though most can appreciate the visual similarity between mushrooms and mushroom clouds, very few appreciate how similar they are in other ways. Each common mushroom is the fleeting surface expression of a much larger and more powerful entity living within the […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson ‘Let it be, let it be. There will be an answer, let it be.” That is from the chorus of the title track for “Let it Be,” the last original album produced by the Beatles before their breakup. Though I’ve been singing that song in the shower for years, it was […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The driving force of all modern life is not politics, celebrity or God, but science. So says David Baltimore, who assumed the presidency of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, our nation’s premier scientific organization, on Feb. 19. My purpose is not to praise Baltimore, but to dissect and […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Nourishing beaches with sand to keep the tourists happy is like nourishing your body with food. It’s a temporary fix. Before you know it, the ocean is hungry again. And the ocean has been particularly hungry this year. Four powerful nor’easters slammed the New England coast this winter. Waves exceeded 40 […]