On August 11, 1994, a man in Philadelphia sat down at a computer and bought a CD. The album was Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales, the price was $12.48 plus shipping, and the seller was a young company called NetMarket. Nothing about the object...
Read article
Imagine stepping outside after a thunderstorm and discovering the road covered in frogs. Some are hopping. Others are lying in puddles or on rooftops. Witnesses insist they watched them fall...
Read
High on a mountain in late spring, a patch of snow can suddenly look as though someone spilled watermelon juice across it. The surface turns pale pink, rose red or even crimson, sometimes st...
Read
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...
Read
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...
Read
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...
Read
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...
Read
Imagine a town where your daily commute doesn’t involve traffic lights—but a bush plane. In remote corners of Alaska and the U.S., several communities exist without any road access. One of t...
Read
Hey, so you know that "Pink Moon" thing I heard about? Is it actually, like, bright pink, a giant cotton candy ball in the sky? It sounds totally weird! Okay, so the "Pink Moon" isn't rea...
Read
Why do avalanches form? Avalanches form when fresh or transformed snow detaches from the slope of the terrain and flows into the valley. There are several factors that can cause an avalanche...
Read