In a new study, researchers at the University of Arizona are the first to use records of shipwrecks in the Caribbean to gain insight into historical hurricane activity. The paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science this week, reported a 75 percent reduction in the number of Caribbean hurricanes between 1645 and …
Read more “Caribbean Shipwrecks Show Lull in 17th-Century Hurricanes”
For Smithsonian.com, I wrote a profile of Alexander Hamilton’s widow, Elizabeth Hamilton. Now a memorable character (played by Phillipa Soo) in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway musical “Hamilton,” Elizabeth was far more than a bit player at the founding of American democracy. After Alexander died in his famous duel, she founded and led New York City’s first orphanage, …
Read more “New article on Smithsonian.com: Alexander Hamilton’s Wife Deserves Her Own Musical”
Underwater archaeologists from NOAA’s Maritime Heritage Program identified the wrecks of two whaling ships in the Chukchi Sea this week. The two vessels were lost in the infamous 1871 whaling season, when ice floes crushed 33 ships. The diminished sea ice cover in the area, a symptom of climate change, has allowed divers to explore …
Read more “Wrecks of 19th Century Whaling Ships Discovered off Alaska’s Arctic Coast”
Over the summer, I pitched my narrative digital video, “The Crokinole Connection,” to the nice folks at the Toronto Star, Canada’s highest-circulation newspaper. While she didn’t go for the film, the features editor instead asked for a 1,000-word story and photos! Back I went to Milk and Roses in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the scene of the …
Read more “New Article: Crokinole Gains a Following in Brooklyn–and in the Toronto Star”
I wrote a blog post for Scientific American’s Observations blog about a video that shows how scientific inventions over the past two millennia led to the population explosion we have today. On a digital map of the world, the video adds a yellow dot every time another million people are added to the Earth. The dots …
Read more “Population Animation: Video asks, ‘Can Earth handle all of us?’”