December 27, 2022

LIGHT SHOWS  Snaps from Aurora Hunters  Across the Arctic, people have revered—and sometimes feared—eerie, shifting lights that arrived without warning in the night sky and never appeared the same way twice. The aurora borealis, or northern lights, have different mythical origins, from reflections glinting off the armor of fierce Valkyries to malevolent spirits who might chop off your head if you whistled at them too loudly. You don’t have to know the origin story to understand how beautiful this natural phenomenon is, however. Click through for a glimpse of these dancers in the sky, snapped by dedicated, aurora-chasing photographers.  SEE ALL SNAPS → UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPHS Vermont’s ‘Snowflake Man’ Wilson Bentley called snowflakes “nature’s wonder gems,” possessing “an infinity of beauty,” and wrote that when they fell, “the mysteries of the upper air are about to reveal themselves.” The self-educated meteorologist was the first person to make a successful picture—“photomicrograph”—of a snowflake in 1885, and the first to claim that no two are alike. He provided strong evidence for this assertion by photographing more than 5,000 “snow crystals.” READ MORE → CASCADE, IOWA Christmas Cookie Gravestone In the small town of Cascade, Iowa, there is a gravestone that stands out among its peers in the local cemetery. Instead of a traditional epitaph, Maxine Menster’s family decided to share their love for their mother by sharing her Christmas cookie recipe. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA COURSES Design an Immersive Experience In this four-part seminar, acclaimed immersive theater director Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects will walk us through the elements of immersive gatherings and guide us through the process of designing our own. We’ll define immersive experiences and what makes them meaningful, then delve into the details of creating them—focusing on environment, interaction, the experiential arc, and guest-centered design. ENROLL TODAY → GASTRO OBSCURA Israel’s Desert Truffles Bedouins have long extracted truffles from Israel’s Negev Desert, tracking them by their proximity to certain desert plants and the telltale spidery cracks that form in the earth above them after a storm. But increasingly rare rains, mounting temperatures, and overexploitation have greatly reduced the number of desert truffles in the wild. Which is why, for the last 13 years, plant and fungus physiologist Yaron Sitrit has been working to turn one species of desert truffle, Terfezia boudieri, into a farmable crop. READ MORE → SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA The Wave Organ Located on a jetty in the San Francisco Bay, the Wave Organ was built in 1986. In collaboration with the Exploratorium, artist Peter Richards built an acoustic sculpture that amplifies the sounds of the waves in the bay. When the waves roll in, the pipes resound with liquid music: low, gurgling notes that ebb and flow with the restless movement of the ocean and the changing of the tides. READ MORE → PUNCH UP YOUR GAME Charles Dickens’s Punch Recipe To Charles Dickens, punch was more than simple party fare. It was a ritual that blended the author’s love for theater, storytelling, and the warm conviviality of a bygone era. His punch recipe is rather traditional—a blend of rum, brandy, lemon, sugar, and hot water that’s set aflame—but it was the care and drama the mixologist applied to those ingredients that made the punch special. And now you can revive it for your own parties. GET THE RECIPE HERE → ITHACA, NEW YORK The Cornell Apple Vending Machine Each year, at Cornell University, fall heralds the return of a most unusual vending machine outside of Mann Library near the Department of Horticulture. In lieu of the usual assortment of snacks, the popular fixture features nine apple varieties, all grown at Cornell Orchards’ two locations. For the modest price of a dollar, students can snag a crisp, juicy Gala, Shizuka, Honeycrisp, McIntosh, or Ginger Gold. READ MORE →