How about the 400-wolf superpack that terrorized Verkhoyansk Russia when the wolves' supply of hares crashed? The pack killed thousands of horses and farm animals and kept people trapped in their houses. Hunting them was nearly impossible. And they were all breeding!

You mean rained down. Actually when it came to sheer hands-on genocidal murder, the Germans still reign (and I don't excuse the Allied fire-bombing of noncombatant civilians). The Nazis wrote the book, and the German nation followed it.

Yakutsk is one of my favorite Internet cities. I'd love to go there someday; I'm watching the temperature rebound from -50F and below back in January and February to as high as 89 F this season already. They can thank their distance from any moderating body of water for that. Verkhoyansk actually has a different…

I read somewhere that they were trying the tactic of dyeing elephants' tusks pink in order to save their lives and ruin them for the ivory trade. That seems to be an ingenious approach, since ivory fanciers demand "perfection." Even profitable ecotourism cannot really compete in the long run with the ivory markets in…

in-tri-cate is very easy to say. If you find it difficult, it's because of habit.

How about "step foot" when they mean "set foot." You can step or you can set foot. But "step foot" sounds dumbbb.

The dictionary gave in to popular error. Somebody told me that "nukular" was accepted now too in the dictionary. Still a fingernail-on-blackboard for me whenever I hear it.

Pres Bush mispronounced it as well, no surprise (sur-prize not soo-prize). Drove me crazy. I've heard supposed "experts" in the field mispronounce it.

Illustration by Kevin Necessary.

Actually you need to visit Siberia and the Pole of Cold —- Oymyakon, Yakutsk, Tomtor, and Verhoyansk to get truly low temperatures in towns that are actually inhabited year-round. The pooling cold air in the Oymyakon Valley has driven the temperature down to -67.7 C (-88 F). But right now, Yakutsk is as balmy as…

He needs to take a basic macro/micro economics course. He doesn't have his definitions, history, or logic straight (at least according to the accepted definitions, history, and logic of fundamental economic principles).

"People were carrying wheelbarrow's full of dollars to burn to keep warm, people lost their homes and were forced to live on the streets and so on and so forth."

Wasn't there a story about Eddie Money —- I think that happened to him when he was stoned and fell asleep, and he nearly lost his leg.

With all deference to the horses who sacrificed in the name of health, it's rein in :)

Books are the only material things I have a problem getting rid of. A worn out book is an old friend (even when you have to tape in its pages); you wouldn't want to replace it with a crisp new edition just to harmonize or impress. I recently had to cull my books after moving to a smaller place. Making those tough…

Of course. My impression after reading of GG&S and others of Diamond's works, is that Diamond feels that European society only "succeeded" in its domination because climate and geography happened to have put their respective thumbs on the scales. He writes, for example, of the native animals that a people would be…

It's been known for years that the sickle cell trait is associated with some resistance to malaria; the article said the trait was evolution in action, engineering an immune population, but it hadn't yet fully implemented. They've now ferreted out the molecular mechanism whereby sickle cell hemoglobin confers a…

You seem to think her age makes her harmless or less dangerous with a gun. If she can pull a trigger, then she is as dangerous as any gang thug. You yourself said "senile" —- People with dementia can change personalities and become violent even if they were gentle all their lives. I've actually seen that happen. Their…

I grew up loving horses and racing —- I rode them whenever I could. I wanted a horse more than anything in the world. I read all those Black Stallion books. I assumed in my childish naivete that valuable race horses were all retired to idyllic pastures and fussed over by rich kids... as a teenager, I read a Hemingway…

Little girls and little boys are taught this if they are very rich —- or very poor. Many parents who grew up poor, as mine did, wanted to make sure their children could hold their own in "polite" society and reflect well on the family. I think I've used those manners about four times. Human pretension is laughable…