key west
terrasig | June 7, 2009
Since last December, we've been involved with a number of good friends in Key West, Florida, on a green initiative that includes the investigations of medicinal plants of the Florida Keys and northern Caribbean. Following from these interactions with students and colleagues at Duke University and in Key West itself, I had the good fortune of being interviewed last week together with conservation biologist Stuart Pimm on KONK-1630AM community radio by Erika Biddle for her biweekly Eco-Centric World program.
Raised in Germany, she participated in the formations of the first political Green…
terrasig | April 9, 2009
A recent business sojourn to Key West, FL, gave your intrepid blogger (who still has yet to set up his own CafePress swag shop) an opportunity to revisit a story we first discussed in February of an acupuncturist being arrested on three felony charges for obtaining controlled substances by forgery. Commenter ebohlman noted at the time the address of the acupuncturist's practice:
Duck Avenue? Is that where all the quacks have their practices?
While I expressed some sympathy for the practitioner if she were addicted to narcotics, I also feared that she might have used some of the drugs to…
terrasig | January 21, 2009
Many thanks for some blog publicity go out to Karl Leif Bates, editor of Duke University's online research monthly magazine, Duke Research, and co-founder of Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC). Many of you who attended this past weekend's ScienceOnline'09 gathering may recognize Karl as he was in attendance.
Completely independent of any coaxing (Karl was *not* present at my free, Friday Fermentable wine tasting), my post is currently the February 2009 feature on the Duke Research section, Voices: Science in Conversation.
The backstory is that, during our December vacation, we…
terrasig | December 24, 2008Okay, Dear Reader, I know you are tired of my ranting about Key West no matter how much I try to make it a focus of natural product therapeutics. So, with your indulgence, I need to make two serious awards to acknowledge the warmth and kindness of the good souls of Key West. Two people went above and beyond the call of duty to make our trip wonderful:
1. To the waitress (and likely owner) of Flamingo's Cafe: We had a terrific brunch at one of the few places (thankfully) that does not serve alcohol on Duval Street. I indulged otherwise with the incredible Crabcake Eggs Benedict and a side of…
terrasig | December 23, 2008In our last few hours bidding farewell to the Conch Republic, we stopped at the Southernmost Point marker. Regular commenter and blogger leigh (the path forward) reminded us to "get a picture of the family pharmboy at the southernmost point marker, that's classic cheesy fun." Well, dear leigh, we found that the marker does not currently look like the photo to the right - as of Saturday, the buoy is only repainted with the bands of color and devoid of any identifying lettering.
In fact, this classic comment appeared in the Citizen's Voice section of the Key West Citizen on Sunday, 14 December…
terrasig | December 21, 2008I wrote at length the other day about my visit and talk at the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden, noting that Duke students and their Key West High School mentees would be presenting the results of their 2008 projects yesterday afternoon. Well, we were sadly flying out about the time of the presentations but one of them captured all of the results.
In fact, one project chronicled all the projects dating back to 2002 - kind of like looking in a mirror's reflection of a mirror.
This project established the Science Corner for the garden website, hosted at Duke but linked on the…
terrasig | December 21, 2008
Click on the photo to find out where we spotted these little miracles of nature.
And nary a PLoS T-shirt among them.
terrasig | December 19, 2008As I mentioned in my intro post to our week in Key West, I was definitely going to make a visit to the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden. We took the then-PharmToddler there in November 2003 when this gem was just being relaunched after decades of negligence. According to Georgia Tasker at the Miami Herald:
It was begun in the Great Depression days of 1934 by the City of Key West, and built by the WPA at the same time as the city's aquarium. At one point, the garden contained an aviary, hand-made rock walls, green houses and 7,000 plants. It opened in 1936 and flourished for…
terrasig | December 14, 2008Welcome readers of the It's Only Key West (IOKW) discussion forum (and thanks to Kategoe for sending you here) - keep your suggestions coming in the comments below the post. I just came from Hogfish tonight where I sat between two people thrown out of the bar by 7:15 pm, one for regular old drunkenness and the other for nearly starting a fight. Cynical me wants to say they were paid actors. But the food was superb.
Seizing upon our new tradition of getting out of Dodge for the week before Christmas madness, the Family Pharmboy will be broadcasting this week from Key West, Florida, The Conch…