Hands up if you know the reason for the plumage of the adult male birds to be more vibrant and ornamented than that of female?

Natural selection, I hear you say. The more beautiful male birds have been thought to be for the sake of courtship, offering an advantage whereby the feathers attract females.

Is this simply for natural selection favoring handsome males to attract their mates?

My recent reading on the subject is more positive. And less sexist than the old-fashioned male chauvinism theory. At times, it is

Essays of Helen Macdonald, an award-winning naturalist, are exemplary pieces of heart-tugging writing about hawfinches, cuckoos, orioles, magpies, swifts, barn owls and many wildlife.

My recent reading of her Vesper Flights had prepared me to immerse myself in the thrilling details of spotting birds. An inchoate attempt with instant gratification. The happiness and the spectacle I've discovered with my camera has held me spellbound.

I watched in awe today afternoon in Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve, populated by songbirds. And so

The coronavirus has always been a rich source of new words for English. Or for me, at least.

Unknowingly, the word "webinar" has become way more popular than Ribena. Inarguably the lingua franca of our times. The idea of listening to webcast lecture is our new normal.

I set my alarm clock to wake up after midnight to learn about the controversial topic of school closure today. That's one day after my daughter returned to campus as soon as Government guidelines permit. At long last. Of

For many years, I've kept the habit of browsing through the best book list from Goodreads recommendation site, and will never run out of books to borrow.

One of the real surprises this year is The Beauty in Breaking , a memoir written by an emergency room physician Michele Harper. Looking past the years (and tears) of healing gunshot wound victims, resuscitating neonates, juggling between intoxicated patients and bed debt, Harper has shared many heartfelt lessons she has learned.

Among much else, her navigation through night shifts

One of the famous opening sentences in Brené Brown's talk goes like this, "Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives."

This, it seems to me, is at the heart of a recent campaign The Billion Steps Challenge. In essence, we were encouraged to sign up into teams of between two and five people, who then log in our daily step count by syncing our mobile device.

It is a beautiful example of what behavioral scientists mean

In the days after the tightening social restrictions, going to school became an exception rather than the rule, which doesn't make sense to me.

Talk to the parents and you'll hear curse words about suspending face-to-face teaching. Listen to the students and you'll know how they long to go back to classrooms. A low incidence of severe coronavirus infection among schoolchildren without closing schools in Sweden, unfortunately, didn't seem to have allayed fears of the Education Bureau.

To stay calm

What makes us happy?

Ask people this question and you'll get a truckload of answers. Brace yourself for some bad news and be prepared to find out that we often misremember what made us happy in the past, and foretell wrongly what will make us happy in the future. In short, we have imprecise prediction.

If you're skeptical, and you should be, you might assume buying new running shoes after 400 km is going to double the joy - as what my Runkeeper tracking app keeps