American - Poet | October 7, 1948 -
Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.
Diane Ackerman
NatureChildhoodMountainsUnexpected
Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.
LoveSunlightTouchSeemsEssential
Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful.
LoveBestSchoolLove IsHomework
For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.
SeaTreePeopleBetterKnowWild
Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.
MirrorIntelligenceEmpathyRobots
We're losing biodiversity globally at an alarming rate, and we need a cornucopia of different plants and animals, for the planet's health and our own.
HealthLosingPlantsAnimalsNeed
It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
BeautifulEndMysteryCountryWill
Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.
NatureUnpredictableSeasonHumbling
All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.
ChangeMemoriesBrainSelfEmotions
We're dabbling in eugenics all the time, breeding ideal crops to replace less aesthetic or nutritious or hardy varieties; leveling forests to graze cattle or erect shopping malls and condos; planting groves of a few familiar trees that homeowners and industries prefer.
TimeShoppingTreesAestheticCattle
We tend to think of heroes only in terms of violent combat, whether it's against enemies or a natural disaster. But human beings also perform radical acts of compassion; we just don't talk about them, or we don't talk about them as much.
CompassionThinkTalkHumanHeroes
Though not a natural world by any means, more like a collection of living dioramas, a zoo exists in its own time zone, somewhere between the seasonal sense of animals and our madly ticking watch time.
TimeWorldAnimalsZooLivingMore
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