Category Archives: Uncategorized

Sardinia, where I am on a criminally brief trip, has a lot of interesting wildlife. The most famous are endemic cave salamaders, but I am also enjoying observing local Curruca warblers. There are 5 of them here, and interactions between them are fascinating. They all have different, but overlapping, habitat preferences, and all can beContinue reading “Diving into Currucas”

June 7 We are going to Denmark tomorrow. I read up a bit about that horrible country, and now I am absolutely terrified. For example: just today their prime minister was shoved aside by some man while she was walking down a city street. It tells me that: 1. Denmark is a backwards country. InContinue reading “Surviving Denmark: a travel micro-diary”

Last night I spent something like half an hour watching two Canada lynxes in courtship/mating. They were all into it, started about 200 m away and ended up nearly bumping into me. I was so still that I almost got my fingers and face frostbitten; they only walked away after becoming suspicious of the clicksContinue reading “Outdoors”

One of my hobbies is inventing fringe science theories. Here’s one of them. There is a shrew called Eurasian least shrew (Sorex minutissimus). It weighs around 2 g (0.07 ounces). In Yakutia it lives in places where winter temperatures drop below -60C, there’s only a couple inches of snow on the ground, and immediately underneathContinue reading “Thermonuclear shrews”

I wish I didn’t have to write to President Biden for the third time, but here we go… Dear Mr. President:I am a Democrat who voted for you in 2020 and will very likely vote for you this year considering that there is no viable alternative. That said, I am deeply concerned with some aspectsContinue reading “Letter to Biden”

This is me after becoming an ensign of the Soviet Air Force at the age of 21, three weeks after arriving to a military airfield in Lithuania. I found a way to escape the mandatory service a couple days later. By that time, it was obvious to everyone that my continuous presence there wasn’t beneficialContinue reading “Lithuania, 1990”

My late father worked all his life at a research institute where Novichok poison was developed (not by him). When the stories of FSB assassinations using the chemical broke out, he was incredulous. “The people who invented it are all dead,” he said, “and there’s no way FSB goons can synthesize it properly.” He wasContinue reading “Hit-and-run”

My friend Casey Handmer has won (with other people) the Vesuvius Challenge prize for reading the charred scrolls from Villa Papyri, the only ancient library still existing. Here’s his post on what to expect next. (The rest of his blog is also interesting). https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/11/10/time-to-read-all-the-scrolls/?fbclid=IwAR2DLA_V3D1GMTugxTyrslK8hRXG-5sdoeB3SiaQt_k41lw9FI9IT5tlyP8

My LJ post from 2019; unfortunately it’s aging well. I keep running into people who call themselves naturalists but are still profoundly ignorant about the ongoing climate meltdown. Let me summarize the current situation so that in the future I can simply send them to this post. 1. The fact that human activity is causingContinue reading “Climate change”

Was the colonial era (meaning European colonialism from the 1450s to the 1950s) good or bad? Depends on who you ask. Lefties and many people living in unsuccessful post-colonial states will tell you that the world was a paradise enjoying an eternal peaceful bliss until evil white people showed up and ruined everything. Right-wingers wouldContinue reading “Colonialism: good or bad?”