Tag: James Penha

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Dancing with the Stars by James Penha

Pluto kissed Charon:
pas de deux of rock and ice—
now their solo turns

by James Penha

I shall use the headlines of The Guardian story as the ideal brief explanation of the recently-published research and of my sciku: “‘Kiss and capture’: scientists offer new theory on how Pluto got its largest moon. Findings suggest Charon collided with dwarf planet and then pair briefly rotated together before separating.”

Further reading:

‘Capture of an ancient Charon around Pluto’, 2025, Denton, C.A., Asphaug, E., Emsenhuber, A., & Melikyan, R., Nature Geoscience, available: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01612-0

‘‘Kiss and capture’: scientists offer new theory on how Pluto got its largest moon’, 2025, Davis, N., The Guardian, available: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jan/06/new-theory-how-pluto-got-its-largest-moon-charon

‘Pluto May Have Captured Its Biggest Moon After an Ancient Dance and Kiss’, 2025, O’Callaghan, J., The New York Times, available: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/science/pluto-moon-kiss-charon.html

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him 🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on BlueSky @jamespenha.bsky.social

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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Down Dog by James Penha

I knew my dog sensed
my anxiety he scents—
and empathizes!

by James Penha

A new study shows that not only do dogs smell human stress, they are themselves depressed as a result.

Further reading:

‘The odour of an unfamiliar stressed or relaxed person affects dogs’ responses to a cognitive bias test’, 2024, Parr-Cortes, Z., Müller, C.T., Talas, L., Mendl, M., Guest, C., & Rooney, N.J., Scientific Reports. Available: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-66147-1

‘Dogs can smell human stress and it bums them out, study shows’, 2024, Page, S., The Washington Post. Available: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2024/08/08/dogs-smell-human-stress-study/

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him 🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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Boys Whale Be Boys by James Penha

humpbacks copulate
in photos for the first time—
out of the closet

by James Penha

The world’s first photographs of humpback whales copulating are even more groundbreaking because both individuals were male.

Further reading:

‘An observation of sexual behavior between two male humpback whales’, 2024, Stack, S.H., Krannichfeld, L. & Romano, B., Marine Mammal Science. Available: https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.13119

‘Humpback Whale Sex Observed for the First Time Ever, between Two Males’, 2024, Hobson, M., Scientific American. Available: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humpback-whale-sex-observed-for-the-first-time-ever-between-two-males/

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him 🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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Air-Gen-Ku by James Penha

tension from thin air
moisture poring dynamo
teensy as thin hair

by James Penha

Scientists have invented a tiny (I mean tiny!) generator that processes our air’s humidity through nanopores so as to create, in effect, a perfectly clean battery that continuously produces electricity. The news knocked me out; I had to knock out a sciku.

Further reading
‘Scientists find way to make energy from air using nearly any material’, 2023, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/05/26/harvest-energy-thin-air/

‘Generic Air-Gen Effect in Nanoporous Materials for Sustainable Energy Harvesting from Air Humidity’, 2023, X. Liu,  H. Gao,  L. Sun &  J. Yao, Advanced Materials, https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202300748

Author Bio
Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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If A Tree Talks in a Forest by James Penha

hear trees shoot the breeze
take the forest floor, fungal
roots confabulate

by James Penha

“The Last of Us” television series has energized discussions and imaginings of mushroom networks, but I prefer to consider in this poem not monsters but the beneficent “wood-wide web” that forester Peter Wohlleben describes in “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World”. That book explores how trees communicate and form alliances via their roots and associated fungi.

I myself was first exposed to this idea not from Wohlleben nor from scientific treatises, but from Richard Powers’ novel “The Overstory”, itself inspired by Wohlleben and the complementary work of Suzanne Simard.

Further reading:

‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers, Norton Books: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393356687

‘Finding the Mother Tree’ by Suzanne Simard, Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602589/finding-the-mother-tree-by-suzanne-simard/

‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ by Peter Wohlleben, Greystone Books: https://www.peterwohllebenbooks.com/the-hidden-life-of-trees

‘The German Forester Who Wants the World to Idolize Trees’, Robert Moor, The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-german-forester-who-wants-the-world-to-idolize-trees

‘The Real Zombie Fungus That Inspired HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’’, Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-real-zombie-fungus-that-inspired-hbos-the-last-of-us-180981514/

‘The Social Life of Forests’, Ferris Jabr, The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/02/magazine/tree-communication-mycorrhiza.html

‘‘Mother Trees’ Are Intelligent: They Learn and Remember’, Richard Schiffman, Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mother-trees-are-intelligent-they-learn-and-remember/

‘We Asked a Mycologist About The Last of Us and It Got Weird’, Bria McNeal, Esquire: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a42760795/last-of-us-fungus-cordyceps-mycologist/

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha  (he/him🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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DNAncient by James Penha

Genetic freeze frame
shows Edenic genesis
in Arctic subsoil

By James Penha

“Two-million-year-old DNA from northern Greenland has revealed that the region was once home to mastodons, lemmings and geese, offering unprecedented insights into how climate change can shape ecosystems.”

Quote from The Guardian article ‘DNA from 2m years ago reveals lost Arctic world’ from 7th December 2022.

Further reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/07/dna-from-2m-years-ago-reveals-lost-arctic-world?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05453-y

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha  (he/him🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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Quantumku by James Penha

and soon haiku too
will wiggle syllables through
computer wormholes

By James Penha

“In an experiment that ticks most of the mystery boxes in modern physics, a group of researchers announced on Wednesday that they had simulated a pair of black holes in a quantum computer and sent a message between them through a shortcut in space-time called a wormhole… In their report, published Wednesday in Nature, the researchers described the result in measured words: ‘This work is a successful attempt at observing traversable wormhole dynamics in an experimental setting.'”

Quote from The New York Times article ‘Physicists Create ‘The Smallest, Crummiest Wormhole You Can Imagine’ from November 30, 2022.

Further reading:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/science/physics-wormhole-quantum-computer.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05424-3

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha  (he/him🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.