Scimitar Canyon is a remote, narrow 20-kilometer-long gorge carved by the Ram River into the Ram Plateau within Nahanni National Park Reserve in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Flanked by vertical limestone walls rising nearly 400 meters, it features extreme whitewater features like “The Slot” and received its first documented kayak descent in 2019. I never heard …
Hot to Cold
The new view of the history of the crocodile lineage starts in the Triassic period, with them as active, land-dwelling, warm-blooded animals, in many cases even running on two legs. They diversified into hundreds of species over the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, living on land, in salt and fresh water, and in between. However, they apparently remained …
Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs
Dogs are humanity’s best friend—but how long has it been that way? A 2020 Science study investigated ancient dog genomes, revealing a complicated genetic legacy that reflects a long, shared history with humans. Old news but I may not have referenced it before.
Whale Breach
I didn’t know fins let alone blues would do this. Fins are big. I have seen them and that is a lot of bulk to get in the air. As he says, the energy needed advances quickly.
Silver City, New Mexico, and a dying desert creek
This US Creek Was Dying — Then a Physicist Used Rocks to Bring the Water Back In Silver City, New Mexico, a dying desert creek had spent more than a century cutting deeper into the landscape while groundwater beneath the region continued to decline. Then physicist Van Clothier began using native rocks, water-harvesting structures, …
How to get shot.
It likely won a Darwin Award.
Trout evolution in a human lifetime.
Meta version Trout in Wyoming’s high country evolved new feeding anatomy in less than a human lifetime. A 2023 study in *Evolution*, led by Lucia Combrink at the University of Wyoming, looked at alpine lakes in the Wind River Range that were completely fishless until managers stocked them and wrote down the date. That gave …
Adirondacks off the grid map
Adirondacks off the grid map I thought I posted something equivalent for the west recently but I can’t find it. The west wasn’t much better. It was very hard to get away from the road. 4.5 miles for the ’dacks and about the same in the west if I remember right.
More Miyake storms
A recent report detailed by Phys.org reveals that Earth’s magnetic shield does not cap or “saturate” energy during extreme solar storms, meaning extreme space weather could impact our planet much harder than previously assumed.What the New Study FoundNo Energy Cap: Scientists previously thought the magnetosphere acted like a safety valve, leveling off the amount of …
Red-footed falcons
For years, scientists wondered where all these falcons went. Now they know Red-footed falcons spend their summers scattered across thousands of miles of Europe and Asia before migrating roughly 6,000 miles to southern Africa. GPS trackers eventually pointed researchers toward one tiny, 1.5-square-mile area in central Angola — where, for about six weeks each …