I feel like I’m always saying this, but: it was a weird start to the year. This year, I actually gave myself permission to *not* celebrate New Year’s, that is, I didn’t have to start a new program or a new calendar system, make a fresh start or be a new me. It was a […]
Miscellaneous
At the height of the last Cold War the U.S. military burrowed into a glacier in northernmost Greenland and installed a nuclear reactor. The reactor was small—“experimental,” the army called it—and designed to power a base that had also been built under the ice. The base was called Camp Century, and it could house up […]
My first week on a real journalism job in Yellowknife, 20 years ago, my boss took me to see the old Giant Mine site. It wasn’t among the tourist traps of the Northwest Territories, but he felt this was a place I needed to understand if I was going to report on industry in the […]
This post first ran in the spring of 2015 and I’ve often wondered if this patch of earth in Iowa is still guarded. A summer not long ago I went for a grueling 3-day backpack through GMO cornfields in Iowa, camping among walls of waxy green leaves that sawed against each other in the breeze. […]
We’re taking and have taken a short break and we’ll be back on Friday, 1/2/2026. Don’t lose faith. We still love you, we do. _________ By Petar Milošević – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=147441865
Happy holidays, readers! Today we’ve got a special group post for you — a roundup of the best and worst gifts we’ve ever received. Enjoy! (And please post yours in the comments for the enjoyment of all). We’ll be back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in 2026. Jenny The best and worst gifts were both from my […]
I am lately returned from Punta Tombo, the Magellanic penguin breeding colony in Argentina where I spend several weeks each year. One of my tasks there is to open the field season in late October, which means I spend a lot of the early days stumping around our designated study areas looking for study penguins. […]
