If you don't believe in vaccines, why do you believe in hospitals?
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David Quammen
@DavidQuammen
Author of The Heartbeat of the Wild (2023), Breathless (2022), Spillover, The Song of the Dodo etc. Journalism for National Geographic, The New Yorker etc.
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Why are Black men in prison for selling a few ounces of marijuana while the Sackler family walk free? You start to wonder as you read #EmpireofPain, another superb book by
Here's the best, most sagacious & authoritative thing on #COVIDー19 & the coronavirus causing it that I've seen so far, putting alarm into context: nejm.org/doi/full/10.10
I'm guessing it's uncommon for first copy of new book to arrive same day for two authors in one household. Rare for us too. But when it happens, like last week, we drink a little outdoor champagne with friends.
It was indeed a great day, a great event, a milestone.
Montana State University now has 811 Native American students, and a wonderful building and program to serve as a gravitational center. We are lucky in Bozeman to share in this community.
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What a joyful day! @montanastate opens the American Indian Hall, celebrating #Indigenous peoples and the amazing cultures of Native communities across the country! So gorgeous.
Who are the authors of "Evidence SARS-CoV-2 Emerged From a Biological Laboratory in Wuhan, China," web posted, April 16, 2020? "We are an anonymous group of researchers." Please identify yourselves. I'd like to talk with you.
The in their generous wisdom invited me to write these few words abt our ambivalent relations with, our debts to, bats—our chiropteran sisters & brothers:
Zoonotic diseases remind us that humans are animals—just one species among many, healthiest when we live with some sense of proportion, humility, balance. Pandemics show us the cost of ignoring that truth.
And I don't predict. I report on scientists who predict.
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En respuesta a @Big_Biology
@DavidQuammen correctly predicted in his 2012 book, "Spillover:Animal infections and the Next Human Pandemic" that the next pandemic would be a respiratory disease likely transferred from bats to humans.
orionmagazine.org/2020/03/why-da
It's #WorldPangolinDay. Take a moment and contemplate 1) how incredibly cool & charming these critters are, and 2) how outrageously, catastrophical punished by illegal trafficking they are.
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Schuppentiere sind streng geschützt, gelten aber als die am häufigsten illegal gehandelten Säugetiere und sind daher extrem bedroht. Wir fordern mehr Kontrollen & ein schärferes Vorgehen gegen Wilderei. 
bit.ly/2ZBAaYt #WorldPangolinDay
bit.ly/2ZBAaYt #WorldPangolinDay
Here we go.
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"Breathless" by bestselling author & prize-winning journalist @DavidQuammen
Coming 10/4 spr.ly/6011MHUBH
The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and create the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
This just in: #Hydroxychloroquine does not cure stupidity, cynical obduracy, or congenital lying. Preliminary results, small clinical study, n = 1. Side effects still indeterminate. Stay tuned.
#COVID-19 fatigue? Go outside (if you have the blessing of going outside) & see in the darkness (if you have the blessing of darkness) the planet Venus, rising high in the western sky, twd its highest elongation (if I've got this right) from the sun. Wow.
Bigger things than us.
The likelihood of your getting Lyme disease does not depend on the abundance of deer. It correlates with the abundance of small mammals that host the baby ticks, which correlates with absence of middle-sized predators, which correlates with fragmented, not intact, ecosystems. 1/2
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En respuesta a @MeanGirlGremlin y @OracleNil
Deer are a big problem. They are everywhere where I live. Already got Lyme disease once from a deer tick. Deer hunting is big in PA. Not sure yet if/how covid could spill over into humans from deer. I would suspect the butcher would be in trouble. Maybe @DavidQuammen can answer!
A few words from me on how the severe dangers of #spillover are spilling into 2020: nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opi
#NovelCoronavirus #coronavirus
Acc to , there's a new outbreak of MERS-CoV among camels in Marsabit County, northern Kenya. Sobering reminder that we live in a world of viruses, incl many coronaviruses, & nothing we can do abt that except 1) be careful & 2) tread lightly upon the rest of nature.
Celebrating publication day for my book Breathless. Participatory. But I know how lucky I am compared to so many others. I'm vaccinated and Paxlovided. I join you in mourning those lost.
E vero. La scienza ci ha detto che stava arrivando. Covid.
E bello tornare in Italia.
Per favore scusa ... my bad Italian.
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David Quammen:
«Evoluzione è prevedere»
Dopo aver anticipato tutto in #Spillover, nel suo “Senza respiro” @DavidQuammen torna sul Covid. Avverte che non sarà l’ultima pandemia e ci invita a sostenere politici che credono nella scienza @gcatozzella
vanityfair.it/article/david-
But remember the first rule of One Health: Don't demonize bats. They are among our most wondrous and valuable orders of biological diversity.
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A modest proposal: Seems to me only way out of our deep natl tunnel of rabid delusion & partisanship is: teach critical thinking, starting 5th grade. More important even than readinwritinrithmetic: thinkin. Say to our youth: Here's an idea. What are the arguments, pro & con? 1/n
Here's a fun thing to do. Walk into an auto parts store in Montana wearing a mask. Boy, do you get the Stink Eye. #FunThings
There is a day each autumn in Montana, if luck is good, if beauty and peace get a moment, when we have yellow leaves falling on fresh white snow.
This is that day.
Yike: I've just seen the news that 3 sick grizzly bears euthanized here in Montana (autumn? but just announced) tested positive for avian flu. No mention whether H5N1, but seems to be the assumption. That bird virus keeps knocking on the mammal door. #ViralChatter
Killing snakes on sight is like crushing mushrooms on sight or slapping children on sight: an instinct of the pathologically negativistic, oppressive, and fearful.
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I made a really long post in my neighborhood facebook group about why not to kill snakes on sight yall please wish me peace 
I got older, she didn't, and we're still very happy.
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Tomorrow marks 17 years married to @DavidQuammen Hooray for us! #Solstice #weddinganniversary
Ed Wilson will indeed be greatly missed. A brilliant scientist, a vastly important voice on biological diversity and diversity losses, an elegant writer, and a very nice, very generous man. Double hit: Tom Lovejoy and EOW in two days. Aaak. twitter.com/hopihoekstra/s
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We all calibrate joy differently. For me, best day of year today: book done, mag deadlines met, donations mailed, then x-c skiing alone at 0 degrees on velvet snow. Home to loving wife, 2 young dogs, healthy cat. Martini, Ron Chernow's "Washington." Happy Old Year, my friends.
View across the solar system from Belize City, just after sunset. Bottom to top: new moon, Venus, Jupiter, if I'm not mistaken. Perspective.
Idiot tourist. That's the sort of fatuous ignorance that gets grizzlies in trouble. twitter.com/_B___S/status/
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It is notable that today's select subcommittee hearing on the origins of the coronavirus will include three witnesses, none of whom is a virologist who has worked on the origins of the coronavirus:
Why should federal public lands stay federal & public? I make a case in OpEd, , just up: nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opi
The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know
Grazie, Mauro. I will not update the book but, rather, write an entire new one. Covid-19 actualizes all the principles & warnings of Spillover. Now it's the story itself.
Knowing what we knew, why were we so unready?
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Consigli letterari 2.
Libro del 2014, ma tremendamente attuale pensando alla pandemia (@DavidQuammen: you could maybe update the book!).
Documentato e nonostante la mole leggibilissimo.
Pesante nei contenuti, leggero nei toni.
Da leggere.
Whenever I see an add offering "14 Must-Have Gadgets for the Holiday Season," I want to barf & despair of the human species. Consumption is a problem, excess consumption is bad, but trivial mindless waste is maybe our deepest Western sin.
Wrong. Evolution does *not* necessarily nudge a respiratory virus twd less virulence. Its Darwinian success is measured in tranmission & reproduction, & what it does to an individual host after transmission (annoys, sickens, kills) is usually immaterial to natural selection. 1/2
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En respuesta a @VandiverAuthor y @DavidQuammen
Sure, but killing your host is a bug not a feature. So evolution should nudge it toward more benign, not more virulent.
Yesterday, American democracy hit bottom . . . and, thanks mainly to its institutional resilience, bounced.
Update of "Spillover"? Thanks for asking, JM. Not an update but a whole new book, on SARS-CoV-2. Just finished, now in pipeline at . Here's where I've been (besides in a book cave in Bozeman, Montana, and on Zoom) the past year: davidquammen.com
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Thanks for asking. I'm not writing an updated version; I'm writing a new book. I suppose it will be sort of a companion piece: how the principles & predictions of #Spillover are playing out in #COVID19. But of course more too: we're now in a unique zone.
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Just finished Spillover by @DavidQuammen. One of the best books I’ve ever read, especially The Chimp and the River chapter. Could not put it down. Will you be writing an updated version for the Covid-19 era?
I've been rubbing #CBD oil, in ointment, into the surgical scars on my knees. As far as I can tell, so far, it has all the same analgesic value and magical curative powers as duck fat.
This is a headline without a story. What does DOE report say? what's the evidence? Could be interesting...but the Times & WSJ don't know nada.
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En respuesta a @DavidQuammen
I would love @DavidQuammen to tell the story of the Wuhan lab leak. It would be an instant bestseller.
nytimes.com/2023/02/26/us/
While I clean Boots's tank, he roams until finding a congenial hideout in my office.
Agreed. This is better than "Guardians of the Galaxy." t.co/tyWFnTQ3z9
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Do you live in northern hemisphere, from Dakotas west? Have a clear sky? Then rush outside fast, now, & see Venus, big & yellow, high in western sky straight above setting crescent moon. Venus: beautiful, sublime, inspirational, & utterly indifferent to us. But it's one universe.
Gottlieb? I've seen. I read that he "noted that the origins of related diseases were usually identified at this point following the initial outbreak."
Really? SARS-1 took 14 years. Spanish influenza H1N1 took 49 years. Ebola reservoir still not identified. 1/n
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@DavidQuammen if you did not already see: twitter.com/thehill/status…
Most interesting & notable thing happening on the Covid origin topic right now is not any new evidence but the feeding frenzy of editors asking journalists & others: Give us a lab-leak story! Thanks, , yours is the most sensible & expert.
Evidence? We all want more.
Unbelievable. But everything is believable now.
Jean will transcend.
I'm very grateful to be part of this conversation.
Is that real?
If so, do ornithologists have a name for it? twitter.com/FeelGoodPage11
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Three New York Times reporters lament decreases in global human pop growth rate, deploring "population stagnation & a fertility bust." Are they out of their minds, or just myopic?
Good reminder: Immunology is not a discipline of human medicine; it's a broad evolutionary field that includes the Tasmanian devil, 8 species of pangolin, & your grandmother. science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/36
A magnificent, dark-maned African lion known as C-Boy, a survivor, featured by Nick Nichols & me in our 2013 article on Serengeti lions, has died. In fullness of time, age 14. Here's my epitaph (& Nick's great portrait):
On my desk here sits a beat-up paperback copy of #Catch22, inscribed by Joe Heller: "To Dave Quammen, best wishes for the future--and the present," dated 50 years ago today. At Yale, where he was teaching us a seminar. Very nice man.
Some paperbacks are worth keeping 50 years.
Thank you, Joel.
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There are three types of people:
1. Those who read @DavidQuammen’s “Spillover” before the #COVID19 #pandemic;
2. Those who read “Spillover” during the pandemic;
3. Those who still haven’t read “Spillover.”
People in category (3): What the hell is wrong with you?
When you finish a book after four years, and print it all out for the first time, you suddenly… instagram.com/p/BU0HMbtDLqy/
Forthcoming book? Thanks for asking, Aviv. Now in edit pipeline , tentative pub date Oct 2022. Title "Catching the Virus." Subect: the origins, evolution, & fierce journey of SARS-CoV-2 thru the human population, as seen by the scientists who study it.
This story makes very important point: some roots of violent insurrection in DC lie in the West, cowboy ethic vs community values, Bundy scofflaws being acquited, rampant privatizing of public lands, etc, as noted by some, e.g. (disclosure of bias)
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Good piece on the western roots of rebellion--so foundational to the DC insurrection #DCRIOTS #CapitolRiots #Sedition @Carlschirps @DavidQuammen hcn.org/articles/north
Morning in Montana, May 21: Tiptoe through the tulips in your snowshoes.
Thanks. No such plans. But a new book on Covid-19.
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Just finished reading this erudite work. Highly comprehensive yet lucid history of zoonotic diseases. @DavidQuammen any plans to add a new chapter called "I told you so" ? ;)
The story of emerging viruses, including this one, is always a story of ecology & evolutionary biology. & that is always a story of people, engaged in the incremental knowledge-seeking process we call science. Science writing is *so* close to writing mystery novels. #SARSCoV2
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"Breathless" by bestselling author & prize-winning journalist @DavidQuammen
Coming 10/4 spr.ly/6014MHUDu
The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and create the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
People everywhere are wondering what happened to make Italy so hard hit by #COVID19. Italians are wondering too.
and I discussed that, plus other aspects of it, here: ilmanifesto.it/david-quammen-
Dear, magnificent Italy, #PleaseKeepSinging.
As we cope with COVID-19 around the world, with the varied causes of viral spillover, keep in mind the most direct & raw of them: wildlife markets.
In this Sunday's Magazine, just up, an excerpt from my new book #TheTangledTree, describing the revolution in molecular biology that has reshaped our understanding of life's history. nytimes.com/2018/08/13/mag
Every writer aspires to write a book that will cause you to burn the dinner and not regret it. Thanks, JH.
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En respuesta a @eatguineapigs y @DavidQuammen
Arrived yesterday. And then I burned dinner last night because I could NOT put it down and tried to cook and read simultaneously. Incredible.
#Marburg virus, yes: interesting, important case. It took scientists 41 years to identify the natural host of the virus, the reservoir host. But they found it. In a species of African bat. Cf Towner et al. (2009). Pierre Rollin, senior author.
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#Marburg #Virus jumped from #Bats to humans. @DavidQuammen has extensively written about its origin, how and when the first live virus it was detected in his book #Spillover
For several years this virus was a mystery
@vinodscaria twitter.com/vinodscaria/st…
#JohnPrine is dead. Damn. Damn. And anything more I say about that tonight is likely to get me in political trouble. Damn.
Great glorious near-full moon over Bozeman (& probly other places) tonight. Took picture w my eye & memory; phone pictures don't do justice. The dogs & cat had to listen to me, on our walk round the block, extolling its amazingicity. Sun over down there, moon up here, reflection!
Cover photo, of the lion called C-Boy, by the great Nick Nichols.
Oh, and the book is dedicated to Nick and to Mike Fay. These two guys I got to know during some interesting outings for National Geographic.
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Michael Soule, one of the preeminent founders of conservation biology, a scientist of rigor and insight and heart, a deeply sweet and steady man—this is a big loss.
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I'm so sorry to hear about dear, brilliant Michael Soule. @DavidQuammen and I so loved him. #rip
The #mink cull in Denmark is indeed regrettable, but not bcz of 1) mutation threat of #Covid19 or 2) 15K animals killed to prevent spread. Remember: These mink werent being raised as pets or destined to live long happy lives & die of old age. Mink farming itself is the issue. 1/2 twitter.com/kywildlife/sta
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Spring '68, outrage and carnage: I remember like it was yesterday. It's RIDICULOUS and shameful that African Americans are still suffering the same abuses & inequities. How long can you expect a community of our fellow citizens to scream their rage peacefully into a pillow? twitter.com/calebhannan/st
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Thank you deeply. This is a point of passion with me: nonfiction can be every bit as artful, surprising, humane, vivid, elaborately structured, & narrative as fiction—and yet also deliver some factual enlightenment.
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There's often a silver lining somewhere in the darkest cloud. For instance, 2020: Trump got dis-elected, and I made it through the year on one tank of gas.
#Omicron We humans have conquered Earth, 8 billion of us, living & going everywhere, consuming everything. Now viruses are discovering that the best of all evolutionary strategies, reached by good old Darwinian natural selection, is to infect humans. "What a piece of work"—Hamlet
Some mountain. Appeared thus outside our window this morning in Zermatt, freshly unwrapped from the clouds.
The "game changer" drug #hydroychloroquine: Woo, it works on malaria. Trump: "I am a fan." Fauci: Not so fast.
And does Trump even know that the malaria parasite is not a virus?
It bears watching. Seven humans infected, mild symptoms, I gather, on a Russian poultry farm. No human-human transmission. The really concerning thing w bird flu is not the first human case somewhere, but the second case, IF it's human-human transmission. Flu is serious.
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Hey @DavidQuammen I couldn't verify more informations about this. How worried should we be?
Russia reports first human cases of H5N8 bird flu
finance.yahoo.com/news/1-russia-
Here's a valuable commentary, from Dr. David Wilcove, on how endangered species dilemmas and linked to wildlife trade, which is in turn linked to outbreaks & epidemics of emerging zoonotic viruses, such as #NovelCoronavirus:
Damn. Early summer in Montana. Our last snow was, what, three weeks ago?
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Current view from downtown Red Lodge. Pretty crazy June 15 is already fire season here.
It was a great pleasure to talk with you, , and with our colleagues and audience at #PragmaCongressi .
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Thank you so much, @DavidQuammen, for your great lecture in #scicomm @unipv @tokybo
Here's a wonderfully clear, sober piece from on the basic reproduction number, R-nought, of the Wuhan virus—explaining the concept & the current data: theatlantic.com/science/archiv
Understanding R-nought is crucial to understanding the progress of an epidemic.
If you happen to know anything abt the Okavango Delta, or you don't, & care abt elephants, or abt local people, or abt wildlife on the African landscape generally, this will boil yr blood: nationalgeographic.com/animals/2021/0 #Okavango 1/2
Thank you, AW.
Next book was The Tangled Tree (2018)
Next one now: .... A zoonotic understanding of Covid-19.
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Revisiting this text in 2020 is quite eery. Fantastic work by David Quammen on zoonotic disease. I highly recommend this real-life “thriller.” Curious to read his next book whenever that may be. #spillover @DavidQuammen
Thanks, LH., but, well, no, not "literally no one anywhere paid attention" to #Spillover when first pubd. It had one week on the Times bestseller list, won three book awards (US, UK, Italy), & was finalist for five others. But more "in vogue" now, yes, you're right.
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"Spillover" was published in 2013. Literally no one anywhere paid attention. Now......
@DavidQuammen twitter.com/DrDenaGrayson/…
Pangolins. Alas their story. Endangered and now entangled in the #Covid-19 origin narrative. I have a piece coming on that too, next week, in the .
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BATS TO INDIAN PANGOLINS TO CHINA? @DavidQuammen @SanctuaryAsia @WILDfoundation @cmittermeier @anishandheria khaleejtimes.com/pangolin-tradi
But if this cluster in the Beijing market represents a new animal-human spillover, rather than human-human spread (with red-herring evidence on salmon cutting-board), it's huge news. The genomes will answer that question, & & will be among first to know. twitter.com/MiglioreJAM/st
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This nicely helps say what some of us are saying:
Monkey pox is a warning and a drill. Don't waste time worrying; urge leaders to better prepare. And think about avian flu. Earth has (corrected current number, I think) 26 billion chickens. Billion.
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Have you got avian flu on your 2022 bingo card? twitter.com/AnnOssinger/st…
Three days in Cincinnati, lecturing at #IgnatianSummit of St. Xavier, my old high school, was satisfying & genial &, at very end, brought a surprise:
Getting off elevator opposite biology lab, I saw in glass case...my old insect collection, turned in as a "science" project, 1964.
Prevention versus reaction. $20 billion/year versus $3.7 trillion cost just to the US, and a million Americans, just Americans, dead. It's not inscrutable math. And it's much more than math.
"The Tangled Tree"—it was a little like a reckless, drunken wager with myself: "I bet you can't write a readable, page-turner, narrative book, with a few dry laughs, about the history of molecular phylogenetics." I bit. Up to others to judge if I won.
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En respuesta a @Dan_Donachie y @DavidQuammen
Absolutely agree. Plus, if you have finished reading that book, also read 'The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life'. Again a very interesting read, even if you're not at home in (molecular) biology!
Here's a devil I saw last week, which Regi Broeren (releasing) was kind enough to name after my younger sister. It's "Sallie."
#Extinctions. Just out, loudest alarm of the year: nationalgeographic.com/environment/20 If you think politics in DC is depressing, read this #IPBES report. Biggest challenge in our lifetimes is to remain active, determined, in light of such news of biodiversity-&-its-services losses.
Thank you. There's a Covid-19 book in the works, yes. I don't write sequels. This pandemic is unique, however foreseen. t.co/1CQEmu2sJx
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Typical day on this new book: I read, research, think for 5 hours, then rather quickly at end of day, write 1 page. So be it. #TreeofLife
Here's a constructive idea for Trump's future: Morocco doesn't extradite to the US. Marrakech, 200 mi. SW of capital, Rabat, has ten golf courses, incl Royal Golf Marrakech. King of Morroco caused a sand trap to disappear bcz he hit into it 3 days in a row. DJT's kind of guy. 1/2
Amen, Jean. Ugh and outrage. twitter.com/ejeancarroll/s
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In 's final news conference, he seems: sad, frustrated, judicious, determinedly hopeful, wise, & as ever deeply decent. Good man
Deer and Covid? I'm writing it into my book, "A Novel Virus," out next year. Complicated, fascinating, and spooky, SARS-2 in whitetails.
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@DavidQuammen Waiting for you to comment on the deer issue. O.O