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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Every September, the technology calendar suddenly becomes crowded. New phones appear within days of one another. Operating systems move from summer previews to public releases. Chipmakers an...
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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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There is ordinary tiredness—the heavy-eyed feeling after a late night, a long flight or an exhausting week—and then there is the more puzzling question: Why am I tired all the time? You slee...
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You are reading an email, driving home or trying to fall asleep when one eyelid begins to flutter. It stops. Ten minutes later it starts again. By the third day, a tiny muscle movement that...
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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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Taste a drop of seawater and the answer seems obvious: the ocean contains salt. The more interesting question is how it got there. There are no gigantic salt deposits steadily dissolving int...
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