And now, the exciting conclusion! 4. There’s a story about the lake below that predates its existence. Before the lake was formed by building a dam, what was here? And why would they build a lake on top of it?To solve this …
Water sometimes hides many details. … and sometimes it hides a story as well. As you remember from the SRS Challenge of 2 weeks ago: Why are each of these locations very interesting? 1. What’s going on with all of these blue lines in the image bel…
Hi Regular Readers! As mentioned, I’m in a fairly remote place in the South Pacific, where the weather is warm, the scuba diving is magnificent, and the wifi is extraordinarily flakey. Since it’s so tough to do any online research for this week’s SRS…
Water covers 75% of our planet… … and sometimes it hides a story as well. In this week’s Challenge, we have several locations that are covered in water, and hide their stories. In each case below, can you figure out what’s going on? Why are each…
We see strange / odd / interesting things every day… … but often we don’t think to ask “Hey.. what is that thing?” And it’s corresponding Challenge: “How can I find out about this??” One of my secret missions with SRS is to help all of us deve…
The AGoogleADay.com test-your-search-skills site is back up. (It’s been down for a bit over the summer.) Check it out! This is a great way to practice and improve your online research skills. (And it’s especially handy for information literacy an…
Every time I fly into San Francisco airport… … I see this very strange antenna on the left side of the plane as we fly west to land. (I figured out the lat/long for you so you don’t have to extract it: 37.5469956,-122.2338807) I’ve seen it for…
What’s in a name? If you’re lucky, there’s just one name for a place. Newly made cities, like Irvine, CA, have always just had one name. But places that have been around for a while, with a rich and complex history–say, Istanbul, Turkey–will alm…
Not long ago we had cenotes on the mind… … and over this past weekend, I spent a lovely Saturday afternoon reading about the geology and hydrogeology of the Yucatán peninsula. In the process, I came across this completely amazing photo that…
Here’s something I learned a while ago… … but I see lots of people who don’t know: When you read online, you can read nearly anything. Big point: Do NOT let yourself be intimidated by scary-looking titles, big words, or content that seems too com…
Finding names is often simple… … but it can get complicated if (and when) names change. People change names, often when they marry or change their names for professional reasons. Take, for instance, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, aka “Sting….
People working together… … can sometimes discover amazing things. This is true in news reporting (think of the Spotlight investigative team at the Boston Globe, or the Watergate scandal investigative team at the Washington Post–reporters Bob Wood…
So….. … as you might have noticed, after a few years of pretty punctual posts, the past few months have had a series of slightly delayed posts, or posts that ran over multiple weeks. You might wonder why. Part of it has been all of my travels inte…
The Yucatán! Foreword: Once again, a simple sounding SRS Challenge ended up taking me a LONG time to work through. I’ll explain why it took so long below. But see the tomorrow’s post for what this means…The cenotes of the Yucatán ar…
Before I write up the answer about the Yucatán…. I want to tell you about something fascinating I heard over the weekend. RadioLab is one of the best podcasts going. It covers a broad range of topics in science, education, environment, health…