Messengers from the Arctic

The arctic breath of Boreas, god of winter, sweeps in on a frozen wind. It hangs in the air like crystals from the Great White North.

Jagged ice floes creak and groan their way onto Gurnet Road, pushing up and over the street from all sides, making it nearly impassable. The "road" is the only traverse along Duxbury Beach, Massachusetts. The sands of this peninsula, a narrow, 10-kilometer-long barrier beach 65 km southeast of Boston, are nowhere in sight. They're buried under the two meters of snow that have fallen this January.

Whirling Fire in the Sea: New Bioluminescent Bay Discovered in Puerto Rico

Elf luster. Fairy dust. The stuff of a mid-summer night's dream.

In some 14 bays around the world, the ocean's waters are suffused with an unearthly glow, best seen on dark nights around the time of the new moon.

27 Earths Needed by Year 2050: Protected Areas Not Enough to Stem Biodiversity Loss

Twenty-seven Planet Earths. The number of Earths it would take in a business-as-usual scenario to meet human demands by the year 2050.

Dybas, C.L. 2011. Ripple marks—The story behind the story. Oceanography 24(4):8–12, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.104.

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