Reduce Your Usage Without a doubt, plastics have revolutionized engineering, medicine, packaging, and numerous other milieu across the globe. The first human-made polymer is generally considered to be Parkesine, which was created by Alexander Parkes in 1855. Parkesine was composed of cellulose, a natural component of plant cell walls. By 1907, the first synthetic plastic …
Skunk Runs I loathe running without a sporting objective. And, by sporting objective, I don’t mean setting a personal record in the mile or seeing how much distance I can cover before I drop. I can run all day if you add soccer, tennis, basketball, or another game. Without those goals, there are few things …
The Beach Primeval Members of my family have spent holidays at the New Jersey shore for at least 70 years, likely longer. My mother and her siblings traveled with their elders to the boroughs of Seaside Heights and Seaside Park, which sit on a strip that locals call “the barrier island.” The Barnegat Peninsula, also …
The Abyss of Time “The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.” — John Playfair“We find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end” — James Hutton Perhaps no physical phenomenon befuddles the human mind as much as time. Whether the result of unknown properties or the inability …
The Best Time of Year Every so often, one will encounter a popular, unending debate question: what’s your favorite season? I always had a tough time answering. As I pondered the query, a response would move to the tip of my tongue, but I would hesitate to vocalize. Yeah, I love the cooler temperatures and …
Serenity on Baxter The topics we feature for this project tend toward the extremes or the extraordinary. The tallest, the shortest, the biggest, the smallest, the first, the last, the youngest, the oldest. The dramatic, the bizarre, the inspirational, the important. All these superlatives and adjectives make fantastic articles. Of course, most things visible and …
Yosemitebear One of the great phenomena we have the blessing to experience as entities in a physical reality is one we tend to treat with familiarity because it is fairly common. Like the glory of a sunrise or sunset, upon which one could gaze two times every living day, rainbows are a marvel of physics …
Opt Outside Since 2005, Black Friday has been the busiest shopping day in the United States. Sometime in the 20th century, the day after Thanksgiving became the de facto beginning of the Christmas gift-buying season. Though many consumers proclaim to love the frenzy of Black Friday and the deals that appear then, we need to …
Life Finds a Way // Chapel Rock Nearly a year ago to the day, we published the 250th The Mountains Are Calling article. The topic that day was Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, a largely unknown, underrated wonder of the United States. I’ve had the fortune to visit the unit twice, both times touring the spectacular cliffs from a …
Killdeer Lurings Near my home lies an abandoned tract of farmland. When I moved to the area, the acreage still produced crops, but anyone who passed could see this operation would not last forever. Surrounding all sides of the land were marks of modern urban expansion. A stone’s throw to the north runs a …