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There are ancient trees submerged beneath Lake Tahoe, meaning the region was once much drier than it is now. Those trees are remnants of epic droughts over the centuries that lasted so long, they caused Lake Tahoe and other western lakes to drop 20 feet or more, allowing forests to grow where there is now water. And they could come again. Despite recent heavy rain and snow, should the area start planning for another monster drought?
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There are large holes in the Earth’s magnetic field over the Atlantic and the Arctic, indicating that the north and south poles may be getting ready to reverse positions in a magnetic flip. This would produce a period of chaos, when compasses no longer point north, migrating animals head in the wrong direction and satellites are burned up by solar radiation. There have already been recent cases where migrating birds ended up in strange places, far from their regular destinations. The speed of the change has surprised scientists.
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The Washington Post publishes a yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply new meanings for old words and create new ones. Some of these ought to become part of our vocabularies for 2003! Keep reading to find out this year’s winning entries.
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62% of Americans over age 53 have anosmia (no sense of smell) or hyposmia (a diminished sense of smell). They can’t always taste what they’re eating, which can be dangerous in cases of food poisoning. They also can’t smell smoke or leaking gas. This can be genetic or caused by viruses, chemical exposure, head injuries, nasal polyps, neurological diseases or Alzheimer’s. Claire Murphy has found that the loss of smell among seniors is “much larger than previously appreciated,” at almost 14 million. Men are much more likely to suffer from this than females, but researchers don’t know why.
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