Psithurism psithurism/psithurisma noun [sith-yuh-riz-uhm]/[sith-yuh-riz-muh] 1. The sound of rustling leaves or wind in the trees. From the Ancient Greek ψιθυρίζω (psithurízō), meaning “to whisper,” or ψίθυρος (psíthyros), “whisper.” “Look from your window some March morning of east wind — Eurus, ab urendo — and you may tell the quarter whence it blows by the tortured movement of the trees. They struggle […]
Artificial Intelligence – Part IV [Editor’s Note: This article is the fourth in a series chronicling the potential for artificial intelligence to craft this project. Each year, we ask ChatGPT to write an issue on mountains and provide the imagery with Midjourney. Everything that follows is unedited and not crafted by humans (other than
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Watermelon Mosaic Virus Art is a quirky concept. Most of us have a decent idea about things we consider artistic, perhaps even a list of works we consider to be high art. But the limits of art are far more nebulous than the boundaries of individual taste. Do art and non-art exist on a spectrum? How
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Uranus Is Highbrow Over the years, we’ve learned a lot of interesting and off-color things about Uranus. Uranus is tilted. Uranus stinks. Uranus is cold. Uranus even rains diamonds. We’ve only visited Uranus once, when Voyager 2 whooshed by on its way out of the solar system. Because of all these bizarre attributes of Uranus, we decided we’re going to
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Penny In late spring 2008, my sister and I visited a pet shelter. When we came home, we’d been adopted by Amalfi. She wore a grey and white tuxedo, had radiant yellow eyes, and doled out enough love to touch the most hidden human souls. She joined Seymour, and they became the royals of the
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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