Highest helicopters
In 2005 a French helicopter pilot landed on top of Mount Everest. In 1972 another French pilot flew more than 12,000 metres up… and then his engine stopped.
Category: Earth science
Endless lightning
There is a storm above the mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela that produces endless lightning – and has been doing so consistently, year-round, for hundreds of years.
Underwater unknown
A strange honeycomb pattern appears on sea ridges around the world. We think that it is created by living creatures, but no-one has ever seen one. Oh, and there are fossils of the patterns going back 500 million years.
Glacier death
The glacier Okjökull in Iceland died in 2014.
Saltiest ponds
We’ve all heard of the Dead Sea, so salty that people naturally float in it. But the Gaet’ale Pond in Ethiopia is saltier, and the Don Juan Pond in Antarctica is so salty that it doesn’t freeze, even at -50°C.
Two-year Mediterranean
Around five million years ago, the Strait of Gibraltar closed and the Mediterranean dried up. When it reopened, the sea refilled in less than two years.
Prospecting plants
You can search for gold the easy way, with a pan or a pickaxe. Or you could examine the local Eucalyptus trees. This is geobotanical and biogeochemical prospecting.
Encyclopedia vs. volcano
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, also killed the famous author of one of the earliest encyclopedias.
Lost and found rivers
Underneath many large cities lie buried and lost rivers. Sometimes, they return to the surface world.
Great Green Wall
It’s no surprise that one of the ways we’ll fight climate change is to plant a lot of trees. Across the entirety of northern Africa, millions of trees are being planted to help, and also to hold back the spread of the Sahara.
The Thing in the polar night
Every year in late February and early March, at the South Pole research station, the last flight leaves and the last sun sets. Neither will return for months. How do you mark such an occasion? With a horror film festival, of course.
Oldest river
What’s the oldest river in the world? Well, Larapinta in western Australia only has water for a few days each year, but it has probably been around for four hundred million years.
Strip-mined country
Eighty percent of the surface area of the Pacific country Nauru has been strip-mined; most of its land has been shipped to Australia, New Zealand, and Britain.
Moon rings and sun dogs
When the air is just right, a large ring appears around the moon. A similar effect makes it look like three suns are rising at once; this may have helped the English king Edward IV win the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461.
Weather prediction by saint
July 15 is Saint Swithun’s Day. Legend has it that, if it rains today, we’re in for forty more days of bad weather. It’s like Groundhog Day, but instead of a whistlepig there’s a saint who was buried outdoors.
The death of the Atlantic
Continents move – we know this. The Atlantic is growing thanks to the expansion of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. But in the future the ridge may start subducting. And with it, the Atlantic may become an inland sea.
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