Hay Fever Many people cite spring and fall as their favorite seasons. The moderate temperatures and humidities allow us to enjoy the outdoors without freezing or heat exhaustion. For billions of people on Earth, however, these in-between seasons don’t arrive string-free. Spring and autumn can bring a punishing reaction to nature’s rhythms: seasonal allergies. Colloquially termed hay […]
The Blue Hole of Abisko We learned that blue holes are nexuses of past and present, a mixing of geological processes related to land and sea. These sinkholes produce stunning features, including the Great Blue Hole of Belize. But there’s another type of blue hole, too, one that brings skies into the party. In Sweden, the village of Abisko
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Blue Holes & Cenotes Typically, the matter beneath our feet is a matter of no concern. It’s literally rock solid, and we move about our lives without paying it much attention. Not all Earth is equal, though. Some soils make fantastic bedrock, while others are subject to dissolution and erosion. Sometimes, when chemical processes or
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Vinicunca, Rainbow Mountain About 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cusco, among the Andes of Peru, sits a mountain revered in Incan mythology. Hispanicized as Ausangate, this gorgeous peak rises 20,945 feet (6,384 meters) above sea level. The Incas believed Ausengate was one of a dozen sacred Apu, a god or spirit in the form
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The Gorgonizing Lake “They thought I was absolutely insane—some crazy white guy, coming along offering money for people to basically go on a treasure hunt around the lake for dead birds.” –Nick Brandt In Greek mythology, the primeval sea-god Phorcys and the sea-monster Ceto had six daughters, three of whom were named Euryale, Stheno, and
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Devil Horn Sunrise After many North Americans were treated to a stunning total solar eclipse in 2024, the partial solar eclipse slated to transpire in spring 2025 might have seemed trivial in comparison. While nothing can approximate the experience of totality, this partial eclipse promised something more than the run-of-the-mill crescent. The 29 March event was visible
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Talking to Aliens With Wheat In 1784, a seven-year-old German child began elementary school. During a mathematics lesson, the child’s teacher asked the class to sum all the integers from 1 to 100. As the other students slogged through the calculations, the young Johann announced the answer to his instructor: 5,050. The teacher was astonished. How
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Gustnadoes, Dust Devils, Fire whirls, Steam Devils, & Waterspouts Most people are familiar with traditional tornadoes, the funnels spawned from supercell thunderstorms that pack the world’s highest wind speeds and can devastate homes or towns. But one type of swirl wasn’t enough for a planet as magnificent and varied as Earth. Vertical vortices come in
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The Fujita Scale The highest wind speeds on Earth come from tornadoes. Needless to say, things that cause the highest wind speeds can produce massive amounts of damage to human-created infrastructure and natural surroundings. Though we have made progress in tornado science over the past century, much about the mechanisms and materializations of the storms remains
Tornadoes One of Earth’s most recognizable natural forms is the funnel of a tornado. The tornado’s form is the mountain silhouette of meteorology, inspiring simultaneous awe and terror. Their sinewy, gorgeous stovepipes demand our attention while filling us with fearful dashes of the unknown. A tornado in Manitoba in 2007 – photo by Justin1569 Also called