Recent Posts
On the death of my family’s dairy farm
by Abe Voelker For a taste of what the near future looks like, Wal-Mart already began bottling their own milk, shutting down over 100 dairy producers in the process. As for the distant future, I imagine it will look similar to the consolidation in other livestock …
Intricate Mandalas Gilded with Gold by Artist Asmahan A. Mosleh
UK-based artist Asmahan A. Mosleh spends 8 to 54 hours on a single mandala, publishing photos of her intricate works on her Instagram, @murderandrose. The pieces, often gilded with gold paint, begin with a pencil outline which she then traces in pen, and finally pigment. Pearls of …
A HISTORY OF SINGAPORE IN 10 DISHES
One of my earliest memories is of sitting around a makeshift communal table with my mother and sister, past our bedtime, in front of the car park at the public housing estate we lived in in Singapore. It was sometime in the mid-1980s, long after …
The Volcano That Grew Out Of A Cornfield
Rarely do volcanologist get to watch the birth, growth, and death of a volcano. Paricutin provided such an opportunity. Paricutin is a cinder cone volcano located in the state of Michoacan, in Mexico, close to a lava-covered village of the same name. The volcano erupted on February 20, 1943, and continued erupting till 1952, during which it destroyed the villages of Parícutin and San Juan Parangaricutiro, burying both beneath ash and lava. San Juan Parangaricutiro’s church spire is all that remains of the village, poking out of the now solidified lava rock.
Unlike most volcanoes, Parícutin volcano didn’t exist until that fateful day. This makes the volcano unique because it is one of the very few volcanoes whose birth has been witnessed by man. The volcano is located about 200 miles west of Mexico City, in the Michoacan-Guanajuato volcanic field, that contains about 1,400 volcanic vents. Paricutin is the youngest volcano to form in the Northern Hemisphere.