Jenny Marder

On the fifth floor of Children’s National Medical Center, in the southeast corner of a large lab, is a cubby with a desk, a computer, two bike helmets, and three phones.

Perry’s Nut House is a roadside attraction on the central coast of Maine known for its collection of bizarre items: seahorse water pistols, a large stuffed albatross, exotic nut seeds. It closed in 1997 but reopened a year later, not long before David Perry, Ph.D., no relation to the owners,…