Hank the Tank Many people who live near Lake Tahoe currently fear an active burglar. This hooligan does not target money, vehicles, jewelry, artwork, or any other valuables one might associate with the Lake Tahoe clientele. The locals have imparted an apt nickname for the thief. But, despite eluding the big net of authorities many […]
The Presidential Range [note: for an interactive, whimsical map depicting the Presidential Range, point your browser here] The Appalachian Mountains stretch approximately 1,500 miles from Alabama into Canada. Along that varied distance, geologists carve them into subranges, amongst which are the White Mountains. This range covers a large portion of New Hampshire and
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The Squirting Cucumber We’ll journey today into the plant world. And I know I will need to ask a few of you to remove your minds from the gutter. Ecballium elaterium is the lone species of its genus and a member of the gourd family. Native to Europe, northern Africa, and parts of Asia, this
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The Chaulmoogra Wizard On 24 July 1892, in Seattle, Alice Augusta Ball arrived on planet Earth. The daughter and granddaughter of photographers, the Ball family probably never imagined Alice might one day develop into a world-renowned chemist, though their usage of photographic chemicals might have captured her attention. At the age of 11, the Ball family
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Levitate a Frog Go to your refrigerator and grab a magnet. Now try to stick it to your body. Of course, the magnet falls to the ground because our bodies are not magnetic. Right? Colloquially, yes. Technically, the answer is more complex (though you obviously still won’t find magnetism in your vaccines; I can’t
Light Pillars, 22° Halos, Tangent Arcs, Bottlinger’s rings, Parry Arcs, and Circumzenithal Arcs, and More! In our two previous articles, we discovered diamond dust and sun dogs. While these phenomena are righteous on their own, they are singular manifestations of a larger class of optical splendors. They both arise thanks to ice crystals in the
Sun Dogs “two mock suns rose with the sun and followed it all through the day until sunset.” – Aristotle, Meteorology In our previous examination, we learned how it’s possible for snowfall to occur on cloudless days in the form of diamond dust. This precipitation transpires when water vapor turns into ice crystals near the
Diamond Dust Have you ever found yourself outside on a cold, clear, still day and noticed a snowfall? No clouds above to produce the precipitation; no gusts to blow up fallen snow. If so, you might have experienced a phenomenon known as diamond dust. If you’ve never seen this strange happening, you’re not alone. Diamond
Xiaohaituo Mountain and the Beauty of Snow The 2022 Olympic Winter Games are underway in Beijing, China. The cold iteration of the Olympics evokes the natural world a bit more to my imagination than the summer version. Mountains, snow, ice, skiing. If you’re familiar with the skyline of Beijing, you know the horizon is not
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Heartstrings of the Galaxy The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory spent three years pointing the MeerKAT radio telescope at the core of our galaxy. The result is a disarming, gorgeous mosaic image of the heart of the Milky Way: MeerKAT image of the Galactic centre region – SARAO Most of the stars in the Milky
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