Steve Prentice-Dunn

After the DOGE purge, reality is setting in. It turns out, workers are actually needed. The FAA just announced plans to hire at least 8,900 air traffic controllers. The National Weather Service is bringing on hundreds of new staff, just months after losing more than 500 people.

Stunning and promising research published in the journal Nature.

I like this storm drain art at the Chapel Hill Public Library. In the past few years our town has commissioned a number of pieces by individual artists to highlight storm drains and water flow.

Sixty years of social psychology research has demonstrated just that and yet it stays in the public consciousness as a truism.

Guilty as charged…

Primate graybeards

Oh for sure!

Preliminary sketch for a piece in progress I’m calling “American Gestapo.” #StandUpSpeakOut #MakeProtestArt

July 2025 in Chapel Hill, NC: Our heat index was over 100 degrees on 26 of 31 days, including 117 degrees on three days. We received 16 inches of rain in the first 19 days of the month. It was easily the hottest, wettest month I’ve experienced in my 8 years living here. Unprecedented and miserable.

'Buckingham Nicks,' a commercial flop-turned-collector's dream, will be reissued Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks recorded an album as a duo before joining Fleetwood Mac. It wasn't a hit in 1973. But after much anticipation, it's due to get its first reissue in September.

One of my all-time favorite albums: Her voice, his guitar, those harmonies.

The wild turkey is gorgeous! So cool you have such beautiful wildlife nearby.

A wee little Cope's gray treefrog on our window sill. Here's a dime and my pinkie finger for scale. Adults typically grow to 1.50-2.00 inches. (Hyla chrysoscelis)

😄

It’s a wrap on the 2025 Tour de France. So many beautiful scenes and astounding athletic performances over the three weeks and 2200 miles. Everyone of the 160 riders who finished in Paris is an absolute beast.

The life of microplastic: how fragments move through plants, insects, animals – and you Microplastics have been found in the placentas of unborn babies, the depths of the Mariana Trench, the summit of Everest and the organs of Antarctic penguins. But how do they travel through the world,...

At last, the media are acknowledging the ubiquitous problem of plastics in our ecosystem. Here's a brief, interactive primer that I urge you to check out. Unfortunately the increased attention comes at a time when our government and corporations are determined not to acknowledge or regulate them.

My Colorado family

A CU Boulder team found new lichen species. They named them after the Indigo Girls The Indigo Girls are at Red Rocks this weekend — and the state’s only lichenologists will be there.

Naming new species in honor of these wonderful musician-songwriters and activists is definitely "closer to fine."

Each year during the Tour de France, Laurie puts this musette on her kitchen chair. Our daughter Hannah brought it to her some years ago when she was in France and attended a stage of the race. Each July we’re captivated by the amazing athletic performances and beautiful countryside.

Super excited that my piece, "Marbled Salamanders," is part of the Studio Art Quilt Associates' "Camouflage" exhibition. It's at the Arazona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ, right now through September 28, 2025.

Then the exhibition travels to Detroit, MI, and Knoxville, TN.

One of my favorite pieces of yours.

They are such gorgeous creatures and are not aggressive. However they will bite if you place a hand or foot on them. As you likely know, in the leaf litter they can be super-camouflaged, so we just have to be mindful.

Agkistrodon contortrix

There are few hazards to working at the botanical garden other than chiggers, ticks, and poison ivy. However we do have to be careful about these guys. We relocate venomous copperheads because of all the foot traffic we have. In such cases, our SCU makes an appearance. (Snake Containment Unit) 😊

My "Jack and the Beanstalk" moment. This native ironweed emerged from the ground in April. In a few weeks it will have vibrant purple flowers that attract loads of pollinators. (Vernonia noveboracensis).

July 20, 1969. I was a 17 year-old, firmly opposed to the massive expense at a time of so much need on Earth. However, when the landing occurred I was mesmerized, feeling connected to the hundreds of millions of people watching across the globe. Perhaps the greatest technological achievement ever.

Growing among the pitcher plants, sundews, and Venus flytraps in the carnivorous plant beds at the Garden.

Made by Laurie Prentice-Dunn, 2024.

Made by Laurie Prentice-Dunn, 2024.

The Sandhills Lily (Lilium pyrophilium) grows in sandy, nutrient-poor soils in eastern North Carolina where periodic fire is part of the natural cycle. Here are a few that are blooming now in the North Carolina Botanical Garden and paper versions that Laurie made last year.

If I could just score some of these Puerto Rico flag socks, the picture would be complete.

Colorado beer, Alabama glass, North Carolina drinker wearing a New Mexico flag t-shirt. All my states in one scene.

It’s high summer here in North Carolina: Hot, humid, and bountiful.

Nothing happier than a crow with a French fry

In the last 10 weeks, the Supreme Court has granted emergency relief to the Trump administration 7 times without any explanation. Surely the American people deserve to hear their reasoning when the Constitution is being so blatantly disregarded and our democracy destroyed in favor of a dictatorship.