Writer, Adventurer, Philosopher

I’ll keep walking, walking at the end of the world

I have never seen the End of the World, but I met those who went there, and it is good. The End of the World is in New Orleans. Did you know that? More specifically it’s in the Bywater, a ramshackle neighborhood that used to be swamp and then p

How to Talk to Depressed People

This is an excerpt from Hyberbole and a Half’s illustrated guide to depression. The beginning of my depression had been nothing but feelings, so the emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief.  I had always wanted to not give a

The Polymerase Chain Reaction

This is an excerpt from the Noble lecture of Kary B. Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993.  …I’m going to try to explain how it was that I invented the polymerase chain reaction [PCR]. There’s a bit of it that will