In daylight, the water may look ordinary — or even unappealingly reddish-brown. Then darkness falls, a wave breaks, and the shoreline suddenly flashes electric blue. Footsteps sparkle in wet sand. A paddle draws a luminous line through a la...
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When a tropical system appears in the Atlantic, the urge to watch it move across a map can become almost compulsive. A disturbance off Africa becomes a colored area on an outlook. A few days...
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On most nights, Americans who want to see the northern lights need to travel a very long way north. Then the Sun becomes unusually active, NOAA issues a geomagnetic-storm watch or warning, a...
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During Atlantic hurricane season, a disturbance thousands of miles from Florida can become one of the most searched subjects in the United States within hours. A colored blob appears on a we...
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Stand on a beach and the ocean looks almost two-dimensional: a glittering surface stretching to the horizon. The reality underneath is closer to an inverted mountain world. Plains, ridges, v...
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A family flight from the Bahamas to South Florida turned into a frantic international search after a small twin-engine aircraft disappeared over the water west of Andros Island. By the follo...
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Draw a line from Miami to Bermuda, another from Bermuda to Puerto Rico, and a third back toward Florida, and you have the rough outline of one of the most famous imaginary places on Earth. T...
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From the ground, Earth is almost too large to understand. Nations fill maps. Mountain ranges divide regions. Oceans separate continents. Political borders seem concrete because they organize...
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An old tree can carry the shape of an injury long after the branch that caused it has disappeared. A swollen collar may surround the site of a lost limb. Growth rings can bend around the old...
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Few keyboard shortcuts have acquired a reputation beyond computing itself. Ctrl-C means copy, Alt-Tab switches windows, but Control-Alt-Delete became something larger: a universal gesture of...
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