On a planet that seems increasingly mapped, modeled, and monitored, some of Earth’s most astonishing stories of survival are still unfolding in places most of us will never see. From lakes that could strip paint to mines hotter than a summer highway, living things are quietly rewriting what we thought biology could withstand. This ...
Several miles beneath the sunlit waves, in a place where bones should crack and metal should crumple, life is quietly rewriting the rules of biology. Over the last decade, deep-diving robots and pressure-proof landers have slipped into the black pits of the Mariana, Kermadec, Japan, and Izu–Ogasawara trenches, returning with images and specimens that ...
Every so often, a place that seems allergic to rain suddenly drowns in it. Think of the Atacama’s bone-dry valleys turning into brown rivers overnight, or salt flats swallowing themselves under sheets of muddy water. Scientists chase these rare storms not because they are frequent, but because they hold keys to past climates and ...
