The Carrington Event It was a sight never to be forgotten, and was considered at the time to be the greatest aurora recorded […]. The rationalist and pantheist saw nature in her most exquisite robes, recognising, the divine immanence, immutable law, cause, and effect. The superstitious and the fanatical had dire forebodings, and thought it […]
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Doctor Orangutan We tend to view elite intelligence as a human monopoly. Sure, ravens, dolphins, and other primates display some impressive mental feats, but they didn’t devise general relativity or split the atom. Dogs, cats, and goats might be fit to run cities but we don’t usually allow them to hold positions of real consequence. You wouldn’t
Bimini Road In the works Timaeus and Critias, the Greek philosopher Plato briefly mentioned an island as an allegory for excessive self-confidence. The people on this landmass sported a massive navy, which attempted to destroy Plato’s version of an ideal state, Athens. The gods did not smile upon these people, so the deities inundated the island with so
Perpetual Stew Question 1: After a long day’s journey on your steed, you stop to enter the medieval inn at the entrance of a small village. You approach the counter where the innkeeper greets you. You order a room, a mead, and some food. Like modern fast-food fare, you don’t have to wait long for
Immortal Jellyfish One of the many features of video and computer games is the save or restart button. Make a mistake, fall down an abyss, lose a battle, and you can go anew at a previous game state. The real world doesn’t yet work that way for animate beings. Unless you’re one of a few
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Etna Vortex Rings One of the planet’s most famous and active volcanos sits on the island of Sicily, where the African and Eurasian Plates converge. Mt. Etna currently rises 11,014 feet (3,357 meters) above the Ionian Sea. It gains this altitude in under 12 miles from the water! The word “currently” must reside in the
Small Brains & Gunshots Some critters have all the luck. The platypus might be the strangest animal on the planet, or, at least, possess the highest number of bizarre traits. But the duckbill doesn’t have a monopoly on interesting attributes. In the project’s early days, we investigated the snapping shrimp, also known as the pistol shrimp. This Lynchian
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Platypus, Platypuses, & Platypodes On this whacky world of ours, a scad of critters compete for the title of most bizarre. The variety of life is so immense that picking one is likely a fool’s chore. Certain faunae (arcane pluralization foreshadowing) objectively qualify for a shortlist of the most bizarre creatures. One such beast is
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Hair Ice/Frost Beard Documentarian Ken Burns called the National Parks “America’s Best Idea.” The splendor conserved within the boundaries of the park system features some of the planet’s greatest scenery. The humans who serve within the National Park Service also deserve plaudits. They oversee the pragmatics of the units and contain a wealth of knowledge to share
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Kelping Whales Earlier in 2023, we investigated the strange behavior of orcas in Portuguese waters. Not only were they attacking boats, but they seemed to be teaching the behavior to other orcas. One theory that might explain the behavior relates to fads. The intelligent creatures who run in tight groups sometimes display odd conduct for certain