John Marshall and the Ju/'hoansi

The African giraffe stumbles to a halt, bewildered by the poisoned spears studding its breast and flanks. Moments later, it falls stiffly backward. The giraffe's slender legs point skyward, then swing sideways as it collapses in the desert dust. The scene flashes to a Ju/'hoansi hunter, tearing into a joint of glistening red meat with his knife.

Read the rest of my piece about filmmaker John Marshall's footage of one of Africa's last hunter-gatherer tribes, in the Nov. 2009 issue of Smithsonian.

Ant-thropology and "Doctor Bugs"

I had a fun assignment for the August issue of Smithsonian: catch up with Mark Moffett, aka "Doctor Bugs," for a short profile pegged to his photo exhibit at the Natural History museum. This guy is a true character, and a born storyteller...for days after the interview, I couldn't stop spouting trivia about ants and all the parallels between their lives and ours.

You can read it here, if you want to become a bug dork, too.

Salami, Mr. Holcomb?

My latest article for Smithsonian magazine catches up with one of the first women to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy, and the poor plebe she yelled at in a historic photo by Lucian Perkins.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Salami-Mr-Holcomb.html

It was a pleasure to report this story, because all of the people involved are just so genuinely nice!

Ireland's Hill of Tara, an "endangered cultural site"

I wrote this short feature as part of a magazine package about "endangered cultural sites," and I think it's by far the most-read, most-commented-on thing I've ever written...not that I'm too surprised, as there's clearly a lot of passion surrounding the issue.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/Endangered-Cultural-Treasures-The-Hill-of-Tara-Ireland.html

My other blog

Most of my writing these days is about food and drink from a Smithsonian perspective (science, history, anthropology, etc.)... it's called "Food And Think" and you'll find it on the upper right of the Smithsonian.com homepage, or by clicking here:

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/

I'm psyched to have help from a friend and former colleague with this endeavor---Lisa Bramen was a fellow features reporter with me at The Post-Star, and won awards there for her writing about food and other subjects... and now she's my FAT co-blogger! (er, only acronymically speaking, of course.)