Category Archives: Uncategorized

Africa’s diamond geyser How to get rich from commodities Tips from Botswana on how to avoid the resource curse Jun 8th 2023 ECONOMIST  Africa’s soil is studded with buried treasure. Half the world’s diamonds are mined there. The largest producers of cobalt, … Continue reading →

A 1904 painting by Kobayashi Kiyochika depicts a scene from the First Sino-Japanese war with sailors crippled by beriberi disease. Investigations into the source of beriberi ultimately attributed the illness to a diet heavy on white rice, which was deficient … Continue reading →

Petra lost and found In the early 1800s, a Swiss explorer tricked his way into Petra, the ancient oasis whose location had been a closely guarded secret for centuries. Known as Ed Deir—the Monastery—this building was a temple for the … Continue reading →

A raging river and frost-tipped dunes reveal watery history on Mars Both NASA’s Perseverance and China’s Zhurong rovers have recently found signs that Mars may have had more water than expected. NASA’s Perseverance rover on the 198th Martian day, or … Continue reading →

A reconstruction of Ötzi the Iceman, who lived and died in the European Alps some 5,200 years ago. His naturally mummified remains were discovered by German hikers on September 19, 1991. PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT CLARK, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION Ötzi … Continue reading →

Are dust storms getting worse? Here’s why they’re so destructive. We’ve known how to mitigate them for nearly a century, but these storms will likely grow in intensity as farming expands and climate change intensifies. A sandstorm rolls across the … Continue reading →

Are dust storms getting worse? Here’s why they’re so destructive. We’ve known how to mitigate them for nearly a century, but these storms will likely grow in intensity as farming expands and climate change intensifies. A sandstorm rolls across the … Continue reading →

How Many Countries Are There? by Gary Arndt If you wanted to know how many countries there were in the world it should be a pretty easy thing to find out. Go to a map, count all the countries, and voila!  … Continue reading →

Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa by Gary Arndt From the World Heritage inscription: The undulating landscape containing the fossil hominid sites of South Africa comprises dolomitic limestone ridges with rocky outcrops and valley grasslands, wooded along watercourses and in areas of natural springs. … Continue reading →

This is the loneliest road in America A Gold Rush–era highway paves the way to the West’s last frontier NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATHIAS SVOLD BYHANNAH LOTT-SCHWARTZ PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 21, 2019 Before it was known as the Loneliest Road in … Continue reading →