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, and suddenly people in places that rarely think abo...
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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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Artificial intelligence has become one of those phrases that seems to describe everything at once. It can mean the system that recommends a song, the software that detects a suspicious bank...
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There is a point in an Arctic winter when ordinary ideas about daytime stop being useful. The sun may skim the horizon without properly rising, snow can turn blue in the long twilight, and a...
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On a clear Arctic night, the sky can begin almost imperceptibly. A pale band appears above the horizon, faint enough to be mistaken for a cloud. Then it brightens. The band folds into curtai...
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The most spectacular sign of a geomagnetic storm can look almost supernatural. Green curtains ripple across the night sky, red light appears hundreds or even thousands of kilometres farther...
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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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