PULLMAN — It does seem like there’s something magical about artesian wells.

PULLMAN — Nothing about Earth history is static or unchanging. That’s particularly true of climate, and thereon hangs more than one interesting tale including recent news of a scientific advance in understanding how past climate has changed.

PULLMAN — Little kids are amenable to learning new habits — generally much more so than those of us who are set in our ways because this isn’t our first rodeo.

PULLMAN — If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to eat right and trim down, be forewarned that medical science shows your brain has it in for you and will actively promote your failure on two different fronts.

PULLMAN One of the best parts of baking for me as a kid was the process of "helping" my mama roll out and cut cookie shapes for the oven.

PULLMAN — The more we learn about animals, the more complex and interesting is the behavior they exhibit.

PULLMAN — As the long season of darkness sweeps over the country, it’s a natural time to think about lighting — and how dependent we are on electricity during this dim time of year.

PULLMAN — Mount Rainier in my native Washington state is a stunning site.

PULLMAN — Dogs are loyal, playful, loving and sometimes cute as a button.

PULLMAN — At first I wasn’t sure I was reading the CNN report correctly. The story hinged on special pavement that uses the impact of human feet to generate electricity.

PULLMAN Between the debt-ceiling kerfuffle and Hurricane Irene, you may have missed two bits of summertime news that will be important for what we drive in the coming years.

PULLMAN — The laws of physical science teach us we can neither create nor destroy energy.

PULLMAN Once I had a case of influenza so bad I missed close to a month of graduate school.

PULLMAN -- When I was younger, I used to enjoy picking a pint or two of huckleberries in the mountains in the summer.

PULLMAN — It’s a classic plot device of murder mysteries: an evil killer slips poisonous mushrooms into the frying pan of an unsuspecting victim who dies an agonizing death.

PULLMAN — As events in Japan this past March showed us, Big Ones really do happen.

PULLMAN — One of my mother's friends was raised decades ago on a few acres at the end of gravel road in Idaho.

PULLMAN — Scientists have studied natural climate change for quite a while. Part of what we have learned about past climates comes from tree rings, and thereon hangs an interesting tale going back more than a century.

PULLMAN — There’s good news all around us. On March 20, we’ll be hitting the first day of spring, known to us geeks as the spring equinox. That’s the point when those of us living on the northern half of the Earth finally start to see daylight overwhelm the darkness of winter.

PULLMAN Geology has surely been in the news lately, with the price of petroleum moving relentlessly upward, a threat to global economic recovery because oil is so central to industrial society the world around.

PULLMAN — I often eat without thinking, either while listening to the news or writing.

PULLMAN — The pubic is bombarded with news reports saying that young people in the U.S. aren’t learning enough about science, especially compared to kids in Asia.

PULLMAN — The rates of China’s economic growth are often reported in a wide variety of sectors.

PULLMAN Parts of medical science are highly developed areas where doctors can precisely nail down specific diseases and even sometimes eradicate them.

PULLMAN — There’s next to nothing special about the Earth’s orbit around the sun right now.

PULLMAN -- Here’s a classic poem that’s dear to me, both for its manic intensity and its meaning in the natural world.

PULLMAN —  It’s that time of year once again.

PULLMAN — I’m trained in geology, but I don’t work in the energy industry.

PULLMAN — I came to a sharp fork in the deeply rutted road of my life this fall.

PULLMAN — My favorite epoch in Earth history is the Ice Age, the time in which saber tooth tigers and giant mastodons roamed the world.

PULLMAN — I remember well when Barbara Mandrell and George Jones sang a fine country and western song about changes in public perspective.

PULLMAN — Kids delight in blowing up a balloon and letting it go.

PULLMAN — I parked my ample butt on the granite steps and waited in the shade of a campus building.

PULLMAN — The Gulf oil spill has shown us just one of the downsides of petroleum.

PULLMAN -- With the price of gold over $1,000 per troy ounce, people have asked me if they should sell Great Aunt Edna’s rings and bracelets.

PULLMAN — The disaster in the Gulf has been plenty grim.

PULLMAN — Some of us have never found a single dollar bill on the sidewalk.

PULLMAN — Some geologists are heroes.

PULLMAN — At every level, we humans have a natural drive to understand the world around us.

PULLMAN — It’s difficult to know how to compare enormous disasters with one another.

PULLMAN — My finest memory from childhood is sailing a kayak my clever brother had made out of plywood and canvas.

PULLMAN — To me, there’s nothing like a breakfast that involves an egg.

PULLMAN — If you like eating hotcakes or bread (or my own personal favorite, huckleberry muffins), you might want to pay attention to a problem that’s looming over wheat worldwide. It’s a new type of “stem rust” caused by a fungus that cripples wheat plants.

PULLMAN — The time has surely flown by for me.

PULLMAN — Children have always drawn and colored dinosaurs in full, living color.

PULLMAN — The last time I went to Nevada, I stood on the edge of an enormous open-pit mine at noon. The whistle blew. Then the pit erupted in explosive power enough to make the Earth rumble.

PULLMAN — The good citizens of Iceland have two mega-problems this spring.

PULLMAN — When I walk on Sundays with my faithful mutt along the bottom of the Snake River Canyon, I usually hear only the wind in my ears.

PULLMAN — I’ve seen the future of American science and engineering. And, in my humble opinion, it looks very bright.

PULLMAN — What scientists call the “First Law” tells us that energy in our daily lives is neither created nor destroyed — only transformed.