Our Landslides Are Bigger Than Yours

What the Entire World Can Learn From California’s Penchant for Disaster—And Ability to Recover From It

When I was a graduate student at Caltech in the 1960s, my boyfriend and I loved to take a spin up the spectacular, cliff-hanging California Highway 39 that ascends in a 30-mile stretch from Azusa to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains. He had a green Porsche Speedster, fully capable of providing a great joyride on the fairly isolated highway. Smog was a serious problem back then, but we’d go up on those wonderful days when the air was clear, the sky a deep blue, the vistas spectacular, and …

Natural History Museum Educator Lila Higgins

A Brit in SoCal Embraces Her Roots Every Boxing Day

Lila Higgins is a museum educator at L.A.’s Natural History Museum. Before participating in a panel on the wild animals of Los Angeles, she talked about her fear of falling …

Don’t Gnash Your Teeth Over Shark Week, Shark Lovers

Yes, Our Chomp-Prone Ocean Friends Get Demonized, But Let’s Take Advantage of Public Interest and Set the Record Straight

When I was a little boy growing up in Pittsburgh, hundreds of miles from the ocean, the only sharks I ever saw were at the aquarium or on my TV. …

The Dinosaurs in My Yard

Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops Are Gone, But We Can Enjoy Their Surviving Cousins: Birds

Few things make me happier than seeing dinosaurs on my front lawn. They’re not trundling, spiky stegosaurs or knife-toothed, stubby-armed ceratosaurs. No, my neighborhood dinosaurs here in Salt Lake City …

The Glittering Lens That Brought Me Back to Alaska

Heading Home In Search of One of the World’s Most Remote Lighthouses

One of my favorite places as a kid was the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, where I never got tired of ascending the vast spiral ramp at the entrance that …