Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

It wasn't until the end of my fourth day on San Nicolas Island that I realized I'd been holding an endangered species in the palm of my hand. The little white plants, so small and fragile looking that I kept having to make sure I wasn't burying them in the dirt, were San Nicolas Island buckwheat . Just like the island foxes or the scrub jays on Santa Cruz Island, the local buckwheat plants have evolved to the point where they were different from their mainland relatives. (The foxes, in fact, are different subspecies from island to island.) The next day, on our last morning of planting, I took extra care to make sure I planted them properly. Native Americans lived on San Nicolas for thousands of years, and got along just fine. Then in the 1800s, we Europeans showed up and decided we could use the island for sheep ranching. Within a few decades, the place was trashed. The sheep thrived during the rainy years, then ate everything during the dry years. With no plan...

Our job on San Nicolas Island was part of an ongoing project, restoring the natural habitat along a three-mile stretch of roadside terrain. The Navy dug up it to replace the water pipe that runs from the Navy's desalinization plant up to the main water tanks on the highest point of the island. Channel Islands Restoration started the project by collecting seeds from all around the island and growing them in a nursery built near the base, and now it was time for planting. The hope is that the plants will grow and propagate, until the entire roadside is full of native plants. One evening, we got to see an earlier project that had been nicknamed "the Google Site," because the Navy Resource Manager in charge had said he wanted to look up the island on Google Earth and watch the planted area grow from year to year as the plants multiplied. Naval Base Ventura County, which includes San Nicolas, just won an award for natural resource management among the nation's milita...

I've been back from my island adventure for a couple of days now, and what an experience it was. A lot of hard work, to be sure. I have new respect for the agricultural workers who do that sort of stuff all the time. Our little group of 13 volunteers and 5 regular staff put more than 1800 plants into the ground, and set up a drip-feed irrigation system for 1600 of them. And even with all that going on, we still had time to visit some incredible spots around the island, full of weird rock formations and tidal pools, in the company of huge elephant seals and little island foxes. (This was the logo on the backs of our orange traffic vests. Looks much better on a t-shirt, don't you think?) I'm still processing all the stuff I saw and did, and deciding which things I want to post about. I took a few dozen pages of notes, but since I wasn't allowed to take photos, you'd have to rely on my writing everything out. But there is one thing I wanted to say right of...

Channel Islands Restoration sent me a checklist of things I'll need on San Nicolas Island. It had a few surprises on it. Looks like I'll be making a few purchases before I go. But at least then I'll have the stuff for next time. They also sent along a set of rules for visiting the island. One of them really stood out. So no Kaepernicking. Well, it is a Navy base, after all. But then there was also this one. That was a heavier blow. I always take my camera with me when I go into the wilds, and on this trip I especially wanted to record as much as I could about the experience. At first, I thought about appealing to the organizers. I'm a children's author! I'm not interested in pictures of military secrets! How are pictures of plants and foxes going to jeopardize national security? But then I decided that would be acting a little too spoiled, so I will just make do without this time. There are restoration projects on islands that aren...

A lot of shocking and unexpected things have happened during the Trumpocalypse, but there's one that's especially surprising to me, one that will also surprise most people who know me. The Trumpocalypse has significantly dampened my interest in space exploration. Not killed it completely. I still follow the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, and I'm looking forward to the new InSight Mars Lander and the New Horizons flyby of "Ultima Thule." The Chinese attempt to land on the far side of the moon should be exciting, too. But it all feels so secondary to me now. A while back, I heard the Planetary Society's Director of Space Policy say it was a good time to pitch new space missions because Donald Trump likes big, impressive things he can brag about. To me, the idea of NASA being there just to satisfy some narcissist's ego cheapens the whole experience. But what's worse is the threat Trump and his minions are posing to the entire world, through ...