Author: Ms. R.

There are other “Machus” than Machu Picchu. “Machu” simply means “old” in the Peruvian language Quechua, and there are many other old, beautiful places to visit in the Sacred Valley, north of Cusco. Machu Colca is one of them. Also called Machuqolqa or Machu Qollqa, it is an easy-to-access place, with a hiking variation that makes it more adventurous. “Colca” derives from “qollca,” which is the Quechuan word for storage. Yes, quite literally, this site is an old storage facility,……

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About 800 years ago, a large section of Mesa Seco on the edge of the Lake City caldera broke off and moved down the steep slopes of the mesa. Rather than a large slide of rock, which would be common in the steep Colorado Rockies, the material flowed down the hill, almost like a river. This river of rock, mud, and gravel was called the Slumgullion Mass Flow. It flowed about four miles into the Lake Fork of the……

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As you stroll along the sidewalk in Curtis Street in Denver, you might notice something unusual between 15th and 16th Street. One moment, you might hear the gentle trickle of water as if a hidden stream flows beneath the city. The next, you could be startled by the rumble of thunder or the clucking of chickens. That’s because, hidden underneath the sidewalk’s six stainless steel grates, are speakers piping in an eclectic mix of pre-recorded sounds. The installation was created……

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The legend goes that, in 1930s Hong Kong, a foreign customer at Tai Ping Koon Restaurant couldn’t remember the name of a menu item and asked for “sweet wings,” which a waiter misheard as “Swiss wings.” It’s likely apocryphal, but the name and the dish—chicken wings in a sweet/salty/savory glaze—became one, and Swiss wings are now a Hong Kong classic, found at restaurants across the territory. At Tai Ping Koon, the place where the dish was invented, the wings……

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“A-TE-PEC! A-TE-PEC! A-TE-PEC!” It was loud enough in the gymnasium to make one’s eardrums hurt. Fans screamed from the rafters, many decked out in the red and white colors representing the town of San Juan Atepec. People clapped noisemakers, twirled wooden rattles. Spectators overflowed from the bleachers onto the concrete steps and the hardwood floor. At the center of the arena, 10 men from the Oaxacan mountain towns of San Juan Atepec and Natividad took fadeaway jumpers, blocked shots,……

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How do you decide how big a tree is? It can’t just be height or circumference alone; it must be a weighted combination of some kind. And, of course, we want a non-destructive way to measure it; digging up the tree would defeat the purpose. A widely used system, at least in the United States, is the American Forests point system. This is defined as: circumference (in inches) + height (in feet) + one quarter the average crown spread……

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It was known as the Alcatraz of Panama. But unlike San Francisco’s infamous prison, the Coiba Island Penal Colony didn’t just have sharks off its shoreline to instill a fear of escape. Inmates also contended with scorching jungle temperatures, intense tropical storms, outdoor prison cells, and ferocious alligators roaming the island. These harsh factors not only encouraged redemption, they also kept human activity away from the island, creating a rich natural biosphere for when the prison reformed into a……

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One hundred and fifty million years ago, the swamps of Fujian province in southeastern China teemed with life. Fossils reveal a rich Jurassic ecosystem dubbed the Zhenghe Fauna, where turtles, frogs, and fish filled the waters and feathered dinosaurs stalked or waded on long, slender legs. And flitting about in the trees, there was a tiny creature whose recent discovery has upended our understanding of when and how birds became birds. Its scientific name is Baminornis zhenghensis, a mixture……

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For thousands of years, humans across the world have played music using some version of the ocarina, a rounded wind instrument that produces a flute-like sound. In ancient China, ocarina-like instruments date back to 5,000 BC, and the Maya and the Aztecs used them in religious ceremonies. But the modern ocarina, a sweet potato–shaped instrument with 10 to 12 holes, was invented, by mistake, in the small Italian town of Budrio. Today, that same town is host to the……

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Dedicated in 1985, The Cordova Fisherman’s monument stands quiet vigil over the town’s south harbor. Cordova stands as Prince William Sound’s gateway to the Gulf of Alaska, which experiences frequent storms as large and turbulent as Atlantic hurricanes. The Joan Jackson designed statue of a mariner seemingly guiding his vessel through a violent storm. He is surrounded by 132 plaques commemorating the lives of the men and women who spent their lives on the sea, including commercial fishermen, underwater……

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Fu Garden (or Fu Ssu-nien Memorial Garden) sits quietly near the entrance of National Taiwan University. It commemorates Fu Ssu-nien, a prominent intellectual leader of China’s May Fourth Movement and NTU’s president during the turbulent time of the Chinese Civil War. Though his tenure lasted only a year or so between 1949 to until his passing in 1950, Fu played a crucial role in stabilizing the university’s administration. He is known as a champion of liberal values and a defender……

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