About once every other week for as long as you have been alive, zooming space rocks have penetrated the shell of gases surrounding our blue planet. If you happened to be in the right spot and were looking up, you might have seen a fireball in the sky, caused by a supersonic space rock encountering […]
The crested auklet looks like a smiling clown that never blinks. It is probably the only seabird that smells like a tangerine. Its beak — the color of a tangerine — is so bright a scientist thinks it may be fluorescent. Hector Douglas is that scientist. He teaches at Grambling State University in the pine […]
The glorious paper birch outside the window that has for the past three weeks beamed a sunny glow is losing its luster, one golden coin at a time. The 10,000 solar panels the tree has worn since early spring are releasing their grip without a sound, and spiraling to the forest floor. In deciduous plants, […]
Here in middle Alaska north of Fairbanks, a trapper wearing a flannel shirt, leather gloves, and a bushy beard tromps through the forest. He spreads his arms wide to part wild rose bushes as he steps toward his traps. On this crisp, cool fall day in 2021, this trapper — who lives in Atlanta and […]