Americas
What Makes the Trout in Ecuador Look Like Salmon?
Aiming to catch a few trout for dinner, the author decides to try his luck at one of the region's many "sport fishing" sites
February 12, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
How to Revive a Lost Language
By the year 2100, the human race will have lost about 50% of the languages alive today. Every fourteen days a language dies. There are some success stories though
February 08, 2013 |
By Rose Eveleth
Bike, Bark, Bite, Blood: The Perils of Cycling in Rabies Country
An unfortunate run in with a mutt in Ecuador turned into a trip to the doctor's to be treated for rabies, a surprisingly fatal disease
February 07, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
Women Are Awesome at Science, But Not So Much in the U.S.
Science savvy female teens in Asia, east and south Europe and the Middle East outperform males in science aptitude, but the opposite is true in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe
February 06, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
A Football Team With No One to Play Against
Listen closely around the public parks of Quito, Ecuador, and you just might hear that familiar sound: "Hut hut hike!"
February 06, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
Strange Ball in a Strange Place: Watching the Super Bowl in Ecuador
America's Biggest Game brings excitement, curiosity and some boredom to Ecuador
February 04, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
Faces From Afar: Two Canadian Travelers Bring Love, Goodwill and Water Filters to the Needy
Give a man a glass of water, and you may quench his thirst. But teach him to build a water filter, as Rod and Ingrid McCarroll are doing, and he'll have clean water for life
February 01, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
The FBI Once Freaked Out About Nazi Monks in the Amazon Rainforest
In October 1941, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover received a strange bit of war intelligence in a classified document
February 01, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Much Ado About Nothing at the Equator
Just north of Quito stands a grand and glowing tribute to one of Ecuador’s proudest features: the Equator. The problem is, it was built in the wrong place
January 30, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
Experimental ‘Alcoholism Vaccine’ Gives Drinkers an Instant Hangover
People who have been given the vaccine will experience an immediate hangover from even a drop of alcohol, making drinking such an unpleasant experience that they’ll be forced to abstain
January 28, 2013 |
By Lauren Kirchner
Faithful Monkeys Make More Babies
When owl monkeys break up the mate that takes up with "the other partner" produces fewer offspring than faithful monkeys
January 25, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Tapirs—South America’s Largest And Weirdest Mammal—Thrive in Secret Jungle Corridors
Good news for tapirs, the odd forest dwelling South American mammals that look something like a cross between a deer, pig and anteater
January 24, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Sweet Potato Genes Say Polynesians, Not Europeans, Spread the Tubers Across the Pacific
Sweet potato samples preserved in centuries-old herbariums indicate that Polynesian sailors, rather than Spanish or Portuguese explorers, introduced the now-ubiquitous yam across Southeast Asia and the Pacific
January 23, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Ecuador, Land of Malaria, Iguanas, Mangoes and Mountains
The author leaves Peru behind and crosses into Ecuador, where he encounters his first sign of a mosquito
January 23, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
What to Eat—or Not—in Peru
The roving ceviche carts and meat grills are colorful pieces of street scenery, but eating a creamy cherimoya or a sweet and starchy lucuma could be the truest taste of Peru
January 17, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
Braving the Pan-American Highway of Death
Along the roadway in Peru, hand-built memorials to accident victims occur almost as regularly as the kilometer markers themselves
January 15, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
One Man’s Seven-Year March Along Ancient Migration Routes
This past Sunday, journalist Paul Salopek began his walk from Ethiopia to Patagonia
January 11, 2013 |
By Colin Schultz
No Place Compares to the Unrelenting Lifelessness of Peru’s Sechura Desert
From the lush, tropical mountains, we descended into a landscape of flailing-armed cacti, spiny succulents like giant artichokes and sand dunes as high as mountains
January 10, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
From the Slums of Lima to the Peaks of the Andes
After unpacking and assembling his bicycle at the airport terminal, the author heads north on the Pan-American Highway toward the mountain town of Canta
January 07, 2013 |
By Alastair Bland
The Best Places to See and Celebrate the Winter Solstice
Many temples and monuments were intentionally built to face, frame or otherwise "welcome" the rising winter solstice sun
December 20, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
