Will Hawai’i Succeed in Killing Me?

A Weather Forecaster on the Big Island Predicts More Disasters If the State Doesn’t Heed Scientific Warnings

Hawai‘i is a spectacular place—not just visually exciting, but also located above incredible geological forces and beneath amazing atmospheric conditions. As a meteorologist who reports on earth science news, I call the Aloha State home because of the multiple scientific processes that come together here every day to create a true paradise.

The casual joke shared among locals is that we live on an island that is actively trying to kill us. Hawai‘i has a long history of epic natural disasters and will be a home for earthquakes, tsunamis, flash floods, …

by Michael Phillips | September 5, 2023

A male bullfinch with an orange chest and black head and wing tips in a cage.

Intellectual Snobbery Is for the Birds

How Birdkeepers and Bullfinch Sperm Taught an Ornithologist Something New About Evolution

by Tim Birkhead | March 1, 2023

Birdkeepers are almost universally scorned by anyone else interested in birds. Biologists and birdwatchers alike are generally opposed to the idea of birds being kept in captivity. But during a …

| Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

I Turn Science Into Art

My Textbook Illustrations Help Educate the Next Generation of Biologists, Doctors, and Physicists

by Nigel Orme | December 12, 2022

I graduated from art school in a muddle. All I’d ever really wanted to do was draw, and I had done so on every sheet of paper that came within …

How Valley Fever Brings People Together

Scientific Research Is Famously Siloed, But a Collaborative Community Has Emerged Around This California Disease

by Anh Diep | November 21, 2022

For the last five years, I’ve researched Valley fever at a multidisciplinary lab at the University of California, Merced. This experience has convinced me that for my work to pay …

Could a Tattoo Cure What Ails You?

Medicine Is an Art. Art, Too, Can Be Medicine

by Anh Diep | September 22, 2022

Tattoos and medicine may seem an unlikely pairing, but medical tattoos are nothing new. Religious tattoos of ancient Egyptians honored the gods and, possibly, directed divine healing to ailing body …

The 2023 Zócalo Book Prize Honors Explorations of Community

We’re Looking for the Best Nonfiction Books on Human Connection

September 8, 2022

Since 2011, Zócalo Public Square’s annual book prize has recognized the U.S.-published nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness …

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