6174 Self-taught Indian mathematician D.R. Kaprekar (1905-1986) discovered this curious result in 1955. Take any four-digit number with at least two distinct digits, write the digits first in descending, then in ascending order, and subtract one from the other. Repeat with the resulting number, and again if necessary. Within seven iterations, you’ll always arrive at […]
Life + Outdoors
Posted inField Notes
Superstar
This time of year, you’ll no doubt be seeing commentaries about the Star of Bethlehem, many of which will explain away the “star” as a conjunction of two planets, or as a comet, or even as a bolide (very bright meteor). Looking over my past writing, I realize I’ve been guilty of this in this […]
Posted inSeriously?
Hallmark Christmas-Romantasy Movie Pitches
Good morning. I’ll get right to it: The numbers are bad. We are losing our target audience of straight, white women in droves. Initially, we responded by dipping our toes into inclusivity: a couple of Ikea gays here, a light brown Santa there. But our crushing grip on the market from the first whiff of […]
Posted inGet Out
The Titaneer
It’s still dark when I reach the trailhead at Jedediah Smith Redwoods. I’d hoped to be the first person at the Grove of Titans before dawn, but a single Subaru beat me to it. On the trail, in the blue-gray light, I spot a man moving mindfully along the trail with a trash picker in […]
Posted inField Notes
Atlas and Pleione’s Kids: The Pleiades
I’ve written about the Pleiades star cluster before (“Orion and the Pleiades,” Jan. 12, 2023), in which I focused on the ancient Greek myth of the hunter Orion endlessly pursuing Mom, Dad and seven sisters across the night sky. Here, I’m going to focus on the stars themselves, and what makes them so interesting to […]
Posted inSeriously?
Rejected Names for Pantone’s Color of the Year Cloud Dancer
As we do every year, we at Pantone spent the last months sorting through a storm of swatches — literally every color perceivable by the human eye — to name the color of the year, the hue that captures the aesthetic zeitgeist. The 2026 Color of the Year is Cloud Dancer, “A whisper of tranquility […]
Posted inGet Out
The Ocean Is Coming: King Tides Offer Preview of Rising Seas
The highest King Tides of the year arrived in Humboldt County this week, offering both a spectacle and a warning. Unlike waves or swell, which are wind-driven, tides are the daily rise and fall of the ocean, created by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun. They become “King” tides when the sun, moon, […]
Posted inHumboldt Nature
Winter Gardening, Better Late Than Never
Before fall descends into winter, we vegetable gardeners have to make a decision: whether to put the vegetable garden to bed with a cover crop of crimson clover (or other green manure) until spring, while we cozy up indoors; or to tend a winter garden and have fresh vegetables year-round. A winter vegetable garden is […]
Posted inGet Out
Spore’s the Merrier as the Mushroom Fair Turns 47
The 47th annual Mushroom Fair at the Arcata Community Center on Sunday attracted another packed house of fungi fanatics or mycophiles (lovers or devotees of mushrooms), foragers or mycophagists (persons who actively seek out and gather mushrooms for food), and mycologists (mycology is the scientific study of fungi). There also might have been a mycotoxicologist […]
Posted inField Notes
The Lure of Immortality
We’re immortal, you and I. Well, not quite immortal as in “forever,” but if you count nearly a third of the age of the universe as forever, yes, we’re immortal. And when I say “we,” I don’t mean our bodies, what we usually think of as our selves. Along with all multicellular organisms, we consist […]
Posted inGet Out
Luke Lemke Builds a Legend
After missing two weeks dealing with an injury, Luke Lemke stood under the overhang of the snack shack on a rainy night at McKinleyville High School. The junior varsity game was finishing up, and he was getting ready for his much anticipated — and needed — return to the field. His team the Arcata High […]
Posted inWashed Up
Mass Wash-ups
Back when I worked for the Feds, a major non-NATO ally of the United States gifted me a luxury research submarine. While decorating the sub’s interior with golden filigree at taxpayer expense, we discovered a clandestine surveillance system. So, I wired in a video player to show the foreign spies daily episodes of the popular […]