Uranus Rains Diamonds [This article is the third in a series on Uranus. Read Part I: The Tilting of Uranus and Part 2: Uranus Stinks to make sure you’re fully up to date with Uranus.] We have certainly learned over the years that Uranus is a weird place. Uranus tilts and Uranus stinks, but, as we […]
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Poseidon’s Ribbon Weed: The World’s Largest Plant On the western flank of Australia, 500 miles north of Perth, the ocean meets the continent in a jagged puzzle piece that resembles two disembodied legs. This spot is known as Shark Bay. UNESCO declared Shark Bay a World Heritage Site in 1991. They cited the bay’s enormous
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Arcus Clouds The second full week of June produced some extreme weather across the United States. Yellowstone National Park endured a 200-500 year flooding event that swept away homes in the overfull rivers and might keep the area closed to visitors for months. A heat dome covered much of the country, producing triple-digit Fahrenheit temperatures. And that heat
Beyond the Pale Both Dove-like roved forth beyond the pale to planted Myrtle-walk — John Harrington, The History of Polindor and Flostella I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct. — Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers We
The Three-Country Cairn Today, let’s travel to a triply intriguing geographic location. Connotatively, we use the term Scandanavia to refer to the Nordic countries. This collection can include Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Sometimes we even toss in Iceland, Faroe Islands, and Aland, an autonomous region of Finland. However, the strictest definition of Scandanavia includes
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Taum Sauk Mountain – Missouri’s High Point We do not often associate Missouri with altitude, but we learned the Saint Francois Mountains – a subset of the Ozarks – are an ancient chain of true, geological mountains. The highest point in these old crags is Taum Sauk Mountain. Rising 1,772 feet above sea level,
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Saint Francois Mountains Previously, we took a broad look at the physiographic region known as the U.S. Interior Highlands, specifically the Ozarks. Even though we sometimes call the region the Ozark Mountains, it’s actually a dissected plateau. Tectonic activity uplifted the Ozarks as a slab and, over the eons, rivers cut through the rock, forming
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The Ozarks The area in the United States between the Appalachians and the Rockies typically garners a reputation of being flat, low, and bland. Glaciers did a wonderful job of leveling the center of the country, but anyone who’s been to the Arikaree Breaks in Kansas knows it’s not flat like an ice rink. “Low” is a
The Tube Oven In our previous exploration, we discovered London’s subway system – the Underground, lovingly called the Tube – features some strange mosquitoes. The scientific oddities of the Underground don’t stop there, however. The British constructed the earliest tunnels near the surface, but they quickly realized they could produce conduits deeper in the earth. One
Denizen’s of London’s Underground The British constructed the world’s first underground passenger railway in London in 1863. The first tunnels built for the Metropolitan Railway used the cut-and-cover method, forming conduits just below the surface. Circular holes at deeper levels soon became the preferred method. The round tunnels provided a nickname by which locals
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