Narwaals!

I spend a lot of my time reporting on very serious issues, from climate change to the challenges of AI. So it was a delight to write up this Q&A about narwaals for Knowable magazine.

Read all about this one-toothed wonder, and the dentist (yes really) who is spearheading its research, alongside Inuit and scientific collaborators.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2024/life-of-the-narwhal-martin-nweeia

Kelp farming: the promise and pitfalls

Kelp farming is touted as a saviour for many ills, from food security to climate change. How much can it do, and what are the possible side-effects of a large-scale ramp-up?

https://hakaimagazine.com/features/banking-on-the-seaweed-rush/

This article received best feature from the Digital Publishers Awards (2024) and a Webster Award (2023).

It was republished in the Tyee https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/03/24/Promise-Peril-Seaweed-Farming-Boom/ and Reader's Digest

Sounds of Life, and the origins of COVID

Yale has been giving me the wonderful opportunity to read fantastic new books and interview their authors. Such a privilege!

Here's one Q&A with UBC's Karen Bakker, author of Sounds of Life: a fascinating tale of how digital technologies (cheap microphones and AI) are being used to decipher the languages and sounds of animals and nature. Did you know that plants respond to the sound of bugs chewing by releasing defensive chemicals (even when there are no actual bugs around); coral larvae can swim miles through the ocean to their home reefs guided by sound; elephants have specific warning calls for bees and humans; peacock feather displays are accompanied by ultrasound that makes the hen's head feathers quiver.

And here's a Q&A with Daniel Quammen, author of Breathless: an exploration of the scientific hunt to determine how COVID-19 came to be, tracking its origins and spread. We need to control 'wet markets' that sell wild animals, but the transmission of viruses from animals to humans isn't just a problem in China or Africa; US chicken and pig farms are also hotspots. What can be done?

Indigenous groups and climate change

Yale e360 assigned me this wonderful story about how Indigenous groups are taking a lead on climate change adaptation plans.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-native-tribes-are-taking-the-lead-on-planning-for-climate-change

Sadly I was unable to visit the Swinomish, although it would, as it turns out, have been an ill-timed visit to Washington state (in February, just as the novel coronavirus was establishing there). I did, however, attend a wonderful session on Indigenous climate action at the joint Canadian Anthropology Society and American Anthropological Association conference in Vancouver in November 2019. My work for the anthropology magazine SAPIENS has helped me to understand Indigenous views on health, and how environmental health is seen as so integral to human health; physical and mental health so intertwined.

Seafood fight

The 18th- and 19th-century fur trade wiped out British Columbia’s sea otter population. The sea otter’s successful recovery today has led to a decline in shellfish in areas where the otters thrive, causing disputes between conservationists and fishermen.

My story in Sapiens, the anthropology magazine. https://www.sapiens.org/culture/sustainable-fishing/