FanFare

Benjamin and Dom have been best friends since they were kids. On their last night together, Dom plans to send Benjamin off with a pocketful of cash. All he has to do is deliver a package over the border for a friend... [more inside]
posted by miss-lapin on Jul 10, 2023 - 4 comments

In the mid-1860s, grapevines in southeastern France inexplicably began to wither and die. Jules-Émile Planchon, a botanist from Montpellier, was sent to investigate. He discovered that the vine roots were covered in microscopic yellow insects. What they were and where they had come from was a mystery. The infestation advanced with the relentlessness of an invading army and within a few years had spread across Europe, from Portugal to the Crimea. The wine industry was on the brink of disaster. The French government offered a prize of three hundred thousand gold francs for a remedy. Planchon believed he had the answer and set out to prove it. Gripping and intoxicating, The Botanist and the Vintner brings to life one of the most significant, though little-known, events in the history of wine.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis on Jan 19, 2020 - 3 comments

Even when the floors are sparkling clean and the house seems silent, our domestic domain is wild beyond imagination. In Never Home Alone, biologist Rob Dunn introduces us to the nearly 200,000 species living with us in our own homes, from the Egyptian meal moths in our cupboards and camel crickets in our basements to the lactobacillus lounging on our kitchen counters. You are not alone. Yet, as we obsess over sterilizing our homes and separating our spaces from nature, we are unwittingly cultivating an entirely new playground for evolution. These changes are reshaping the organisms that live with us--prompting some to become more dangerous, while undermining those species that benefit our bodies or help us keep more threatening organisms at bay. No one who reads this engrossing, revelatory book will look at their homes in the same way again.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis on Oct 8, 2019 - 2 comments

It's Halloween and the restaurant is haunted by bugs, ghosts and ghost-hunters. Meanwhile Tina has a crush on a new boy. [more inside]
posted by bjrn on Nov 3, 2014 - 11 comments