Nature’s Mothers This weekend is Mother’s Day. To celebrate I thought it might be fitting to send you some videos of mothers and children in the natural world. But how do you narrow that to a few examples? It’s like typing in “cat” or “dog” in a search engine and trying to rummage through the […]
Aconcagua – South America’s High Point We’ve aimed the virtual GPS at Argentina to visit South America’s highest mountain: Aconcagua. At 22,837 ft, Aconcagua is not only South America’s queen, but it is also the tallest peak in the Southern Hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere, and the highest outside Asia. This classification makes it one of the Seven Summits –
Aconcagua – South America’s High Point Read More »
The Pine Barrens Many people unfamiliar with the geography of New Jersey view the state as a mixture of sprawling suburbia and metropolis overflow. It is the most densely populated state in the country, packing in over 1,200 people per square mile. Impressively, that figure is 200 more people per square mile than second-place Delaware. More than
The Power of Jubilee Sometime in the 1930s, a father in London gave his daughter, instead of the usual teddy bear, a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee. According to the young girl, her mother’s friends were “horrified by this toy, thinking it would frighten” her and give her “nightmares.” That father was Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall and his
The Power of Jubilee Read More »
Poles of Inaccessibility The place on Earth that’s farthest from an ocean is in what nation? A: Canada B: China C: Central African Republic If you answered with China, give yourself a round of applause. The Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility is in China, near the border with Kazakhstan, and that pole happens to be the continental
Poles of Inaccessibility Read More »
Grandma Gatewood In 1955, 67-year-old Emma Rowena Gatewood decreed to her adult children she was going for a walk. She didn’t offer details and, facing a stubborn and resilient woman, her children didn’t demand any. She grabbed an army blanket, a raincoat, and a plastic shower curtain, stuffed them into a handmade denim bag, doffed a pair
The Vernal Equinox Open the windows, cue In Bloom, and rejoice at the end of winter! Spring is here again! Today is the first day of the new season! The 2023 vernal equinox transpires (transpired) at 5:24 PM EDT. From the Latin word aequinoctium, equinox means “equal night.” Occurring twice every year, equinoxes mark a change in astronomical season and happen when
The Vernal Equinox Read More »
The Tilting of Uranus When I stumbled across the article with the title, “A New Approach to Tilting Uranus,” I knew immediately I had to include the topic in the newsletter. Uranus is one of those puns that everyone continues to love, despite “growing up.” I know some people who publicly claim to disdain this line
The Tilting of Uranus Read More »
Snapping Shrimp As submarines became a staple of battle in the World War era and sonar matured into a necessary tool, humans began to notice something odd in the depths. Something very weird was messing with our ability to hear sufficiently underwater. It wasn’t a Kraken; it wasn’t dolphins; it wasn’t whales. It was a
The woman behind the math behind the space program.
The Moon’s Supercomputer Read More »