Falling Iguana Alert “I’m going to take care of someone who just got an iguana dropped on his face.” –Anamargaret Sanchez, yoga instructor America is so large that its extremities feature exceptionally different wildlife. From Alaska’s frigid climes and polar bears to the hellscape of Florida and its crocodiles, the nation contains nearly […]
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Ojos del Salado – Chile’s High Point South America’s tallest peak is Argentina’s Aconcagua, the crown of the mighty Andes. The continent’s preeminent mountain range serves as the border between Argentina and Chile. Aconcagua is just seven miles from Chile and is much closer to Santiago – just under 70 miles – than it is
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Fat Squirrel Week Each year, as fall morphs into winter, a large swath of Earth’s animals prepares to survive the cold, lean months by plumping up as much as they can. In recent times, Katmai National Park has captured the imaginations of nature lovers worldwide by giving us a peek into the process of getting
Fairy Circles At this stage, I suppose we could say that fairies are as good an explanation as any. –Professor Greta van Rooyen The Namib, a 1,000-mile desert along Africa’s southwestern coast, is a resplendent sea of sand. Its swaths of towering, classical dunes rival the grandest deserts on the planet. About a hundred
The Finger of Death The notion of freezing an enemy with a weapon is a trope often explored in literature and film, perhaps most frequently in the realm of comics. Most famous is Mr. Freeze, portrayed in 1997’s Batman & Robin by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this character isn’t even DC’s only frosty foe. Captain Cold wields an
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Gates of Hell Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. –Dante Alighieri, Vestibule of Hell, Inferno Dante’s 14th-century The Divine Comedy famously tours three sectors of the afterlife. Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso trace the author’s visit to Hell, Limbo, and Heaven. One of literature’s great lines adorns the gate Dante encounters before entering Hell: “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.” The literal translation from Italian means
Thorny Devils When it comes to Australia, the first devil that comes to mind is probably the Tasmanian. But there’s a far more populous down-under denizen, one who roams large swaths of the Outback. And, though the Tasmanian devil garnered its name largely thanks to its ethereal vocalizations, many humans find the critter closer to adorable
Kitch-Iti-Kipi Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a spellbinding strip. Cradled by three Great Lakes, the UP oozes confluence: water and land; tree and sky; solid rock and frolicking wildlife. Coming from the mitten, a traveler crosses the Straits of Mackinac, where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet, going over the Western Hemisphere’s longest suspension bridge between anchorages. US
Daylight Deltas We have seasons on Earth because of our planet’s axial tilt. In relation to the ecliptic – the orbital path Earth takes around the Sun – we’re slanted just over 23 degrees from an “upright” position, based on the planet’s spinning axis. As we go around our star, this tilt causes one hemisphere
States of Elevation On the topographical map of endurance athletes, one human stands alone on the top isopleth. It’s difficult to enter the realm of hyperbole when discussing the achievements of Kilian Jornet. Literally born to the peaks, Jornet grew up in a mountain hut his parents oversaw in the Spanish Pyrenees, near the triple point
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