A book I wrote, "Why Rats Laugh & Jellyfish Sleep," came out today. It’s an exploration of Darwinian puzzles posed by close-to-home creatures and things, such as skunks, bumblebees, earthworms, and caffeine.

Found art. Proposed title: Sic transit, aka The State of the Nation.

A living haiku of hope during a bleak time: One of the witch hazels that bloom through snowy months in Boston’s Arnold Arboretum. They chiefly hope for owlet moths, pollinators that shiver their flight muscles to get warm enough to fly in winter.

This eye candy just in from a friend in Maynard, MA -- a two-spotted longhorn bee, perhaps. The males like to have slumber parties: sites.tufts.edu/pollinators/...

From the Boston MFA: a series of Song Dynasty dragons. My favorite is the Retired Dragon. No fools they: Dragons know when it's time to step aside and get philosophical.

These two B. impatiens posed together on one of our sunflowers, probably from the same nest. Turns out bumblebees' 10x worker size variation (from a single colony) is a longstanding puzzle --it must be an evolved thing, but what are the teensy ones for? Could cuteness be adaptive for bees?