Fairy Circles At this stage, I suppose we could say that fairies are as good an explanation as any. –Professor Greta van Rooyen The Namib, a 1,000-mile desert along Africa’s southwestern coast, is a resplendent sea of sand. Its swaths of towering, classical dunes rival the grandest deserts on the planet. About a hundred […]
The Finger of Death The notion of freezing an enemy with a weapon is a trope often explored in literature and film, perhaps most frequently in the realm of comics. Most famous is Mr. Freeze, portrayed in 1997’s Batman & Robin by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but this character isn’t even DC’s only frosty foe. Captain Cold wields an
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Gates of Hell Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. –Dante Alighieri, Vestibule of Hell, Inferno Dante’s 14th-century The Divine Comedy famously tours three sectors of the afterlife. Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso trace the author’s visit to Hell, Limbo, and Heaven. One of literature’s great lines adorns the gate Dante encounters before entering Hell: “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.” The literal translation from Italian means
Thorny Devils When it comes to Australia, the first devil that comes to mind is probably the Tasmanian. But there’s a far more populous down-under denizen, one who roams large swaths of the Outback. And, though the Tasmanian devil garnered its name largely thanks to its ethereal vocalizations, many humans find the critter closer to adorable
The Mad Hatterpillar In 1820, Washington Irving popularized the character of the Headless Horseman, a ghost who terrorizes the countryside looking for his missing head. Though the myth reaches farther into time – Irish folklore, for example, features the Dullahan (“dark man”) who carries his head by horseback – Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hallow destined this character
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Spontaneous Hay Bale Combustion Many people declare autumn their favorite season. With its colorful leaves, jack-o-lanterns, pumpkin spice, costumes, and crisp weather, what’s not to love? Lurking in the background of many Halloween landscapes are seemingly innocuous rectangular prisms or cylinders. Sitting in fields along country roads, providing seats for tractor rides at pumpkin patches, outlining mazes at fall festivals,
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Vampire Squid From Hell “a very small but very terrible octopus, black as night, with ivory white jaws and blood-red eyes.” — William Beebe We refer to space as the final frontier, but, for large stretches of human history, the oceans presented a challenge beyond our comprehension. These scary bodies perplexed us in two dimensions:
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Frankenstein’s Monster Volcano Mary Shelley might not be the first name encountered when considering women in science and nature, but she led an extraordinary life and has an intriguing connection to one of the largest events in geologic history. Additionally, many literary critics dubbed one of her novels as the first science-fiction piece ever written. Her
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