The rigging slinger hooks the chokers to the main line, the chaser unhooks them at the spar tree.

In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call the next big one.

The capital of the State of New York is Albany, not New York City.

I'm just going to enjoy this until I wake up, and then I'm going to write it all down as the awesomest, most vivid, wacky-packy dream I have ever had in my entire life.