Welcome to “Be A Mongoose”. If you have a nose for adventure, this is the page for you! Themed after my favorite quote, "Run and Find Out" (the mongoose family motto in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling), this page will occasionally share intriguing bits I encounter from my research, travels, museum visits, and behind the scenes posts on the progress of my novel. What kind of novel? Time travel, of course! Who wants to live in only one era when we can explore them all!
• Instagram account is @be.a.mongoose
• Facebook handle is @cmruleauthor
#explore
This pioneer supply stop became a train depot in 1874. 18 years later construction started on Union Station, a major railway hub which hosted 321 trains per day during WWII. Now the beautiful Union Station St. Louis serves as a historic hotel and community space. A beautiful combination of old and new. @unionstationstl #railroadhistory
I feel a sense of awe and wonder knowing I am among the first human beings in 2,000 years to read the contents of a scroll charred in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
For centuries, its contents were unreadable. The scrolls were damaged beyond repair. Ancient wisdom was in our hands, but cruelly inaccessible.
Until now.
Thanks to modern science and the brilliant work of the Vesuvius Challenge team, the contents of one of these ancient scrolls are available for us to read.
The text is fragmentary, partly due to previous attempts to open the scroll by hand. But enough has been recovered to identify it as a philosophical treatise, most likely Stoic.
Modern technology is allowing us to recover ancient wisdom for the first time in two millennia.
What a time to be alive.
One recovered fragment seems to capture the wonder of the accomplishment itself:
“Having certainly strained ourselves to the utmost through research and learning, we will no longer be inferior to them in any respect.”
You can read about the Vesuvius Challenge and download the recovered contents at the link below.
A beautiful display in a magnificent historic location, the nightly light show in the Grand Hall at Union Station, St. Louis is worth a visit...or two…or even three! 🤩@UnionStationSTL
@SketchesbyBoze Be A Mongoose! “It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity.” - Rudyard Kipling
🎶 One of these things is not like the others. The most tempting math article ever. Kudos to the @sciam cover designer. You conquered the airport magazine rack. #bedifferent
A plant with personality! This saguaro at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ has a genetic mutation called “fasciation”. Occurs in approximately one out of every 10,000 saguaros. Be sure to stop by @dbgphx and wave back at this fascinating fasciation if you are ever nearby. 🌵
@mcgillmd921 Euphranor. Julius Caesar’s Rhodesian admiral in Alexandria. His 15 minutes of fame in Caesar’s account is a most gripping teaser to a life. I need to know more!