Nathan Myhrvold on archeology, animal photography, BBQ ...

I'm a cigar smoker myself.

If it isn't the smoker.

No, sweetness, I gotta go to that stag smoker.

This is a swell night to be going to a stag smoker.

But she was a heavy smoker, 60 cigarettes a day, coughing' all the time.

And a year before that I was a pack a day smoker, living a very sedentary lifestyle.

Nathan Myhrvold talks about a few of his latest fascinations animal photography, archeology, BBQ and generally being an eccentric genius multimillionaire. Listen for wild stories from the edge of the animal world.

Not only that, he practically insists that I go with a bunch of the girls... to a lousy stag smoker in the Bronx after the show tonight.

In reality, nicotine is a relatively safe drug at dosages that a smoker or vaper inhales, with similar effects to caffeine. Moreover, smokers and PNV users control very precisely, on a puff by puff basis, the dose of nicotine they consume, virtually eliminating the risk of overdose.

France is now experiencing a practical demonstration of this insane and totally inefficient policy, with the Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, providing a telling illustration of the new orientation when he described the rebellious young as scum. It was the proverbial match thrown by a careless smoker into a parched forest.