BELOIT, Kan. — Bryce Black kneels in a wheat field battered by intense drought. He holds two strands, remarking on how small the seed head is compared with what’s normal. After a late October rain last year, the fourth-generation farmer was optimistic about his 1,800 acres (728 hectares) of winter wheat. But a dry winter
“Because it’s there” is the famous, possibly apocryphal, reply attributed to British mountaineer George Mallory when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. Unlike present-day climber Jim Morrison, Mallory didn’t also want to ski down it. But doesn’t the same non-answer apply? Why are certain people compelled toward any of these reckless, perilous, barely
Small boats stand idle on cracked ground in a shriveled side channel of the Danube River in northern Serbia, where the water has receded into a couple of shrinking ponds under pressure from extreme drought and heat. Fish circle in the shallow waters. “This is all we have, these two little ponds that are full of juvenile
Organizers for Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival have announced that the festival will be taking a “much-needed” year off in 2027. The annual festival, which takes place in Manchester, TN, has been plagued by severe weather over the past couple of years, leading to its cancelation in 2025 just a day after it started. In
There’s an ongoing arms race to protect identities and privacy in the age of facial recognition, biometric scanning and data collection. Now, some of those concerns are coming from the influx of wearables, namely, smart glasses, and how to go about protecting oneself from being filmed in public. Some joke about singing Disney songs, others
Camels are famous as the ships of the desert, but even these hardy animals are not immune to the extreme rise in temperatures in Africa. The Afar region of northeastern Ethiopia is one of the hottest and driest places on Earth, where nomads often lead camel caravans carrying salt across the desert. “I can see