The Red Queen Hypothesis Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. –Red Queen, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass Undoubtedly, one of the greatest scientific revolutions transpired in the mid-1800s, as Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace advanced the theory of evolution. Borne time and again […]
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Mostly Clear vs. Partly Cloudy We love to hate on weatherpeople and their nebulous percentages. How can they get it so wrong? As it turns out, meteorologists are increasingly accurate. Graphic by Hannah Ritchie Even if we concede that the weather prognosticators have improved, perhaps some of their success comes from vague wording. For example,
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Hay Fever Many people cite spring and fall as their favorite seasons. The moderate temperatures and humidities allow us to enjoy the outdoors without freezing or heat exhaustion. For billions of people on Earth, however, these in-between seasons don’t arrive string-free. Spring and autumn can bring a punishing reaction to nature’s rhythms: seasonal allergies. Colloquially termed hay
The Fujita Scale The highest wind speeds on Earth come from tornadoes. Needless to say, things that cause the highest wind speeds can produce massive amounts of damage to human-created infrastructure and natural surroundings. Though we have made progress in tornado science over the past century, much about the mechanisms and materializations of the storms remains
Lunistices Though the sky is filled with immeasurable objects – galaxies, stars, asteroids, Uranus – two of them dominate our perspectives: the Sun and the Moon. Most celestial bodies feature tangible but often imperceptible cycles, thanks to Earth’s rotation, but our star and our satellite grace us with significant patterns. Our definitions of time and
The Anatomy of a Lunar Eclipse One of the English language’s most sublime words is syzygy. A syzygy occurs when at least three celestial bodies align in a plane. Note: the following images are not to scale! When we think of syzygies, we often think of the Earth, Sun, and Moon, but any three bodies could
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Candle Ice Thanks to its molecular makeup, water forms a hexagonal, crystalline structure when it becomes ice. Since ice is less dense than water, it floats. Not only is this great for drinks, but it also keeps large bodies from freezing from the bottom up. This attribute allows for a rather obvious but perhaps unpondered
Ice Spikes If You love dessert, specifically ice cream You want to control your caloric or macro-nutrient intake You like saving money in the long-run You want to revolutionize your life do yourself a favor and consider purchasing a Ninja Creami. This device can turn nearly any ingredient into ice cream, frozen yogurt, slushies, Italian ice,
Santa Ana Winds In January 2025, wildfires devastated residential areas of southern California. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, as of 27 January, four distinct fires have killed 28 people, forced 200,000 to evacuate, and damaged 16,000 structures over 57,000 acres. The scale and intensity of this disaster is difficult to fathom but
Adiabatic Heating Furnace Creek at Death Valley National Park holds the record for hottest place on Earth. In 1913, the spot hit 134 degrees Fahrenheit! The park is home to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, which is 282 feet below sea level. Death Valley is just 85 miles from Mount Whitney, the High