The San Francisco Bay is a tangle of salt marsh, mudflat, open water, river mouth, and city shoreline, and it is shared by millions of people and an astonishing diversity of birds. Here are a few of t...

The last ice age can sound like a time when landscapes barely changed across generations. But ancient footprints at White Sands tell a different story. At White Sands in New Mexico, the footprint makers watched a lake shrink into a flat, salty mudflat called a playa, and a pine forest give way to sagebrush. A severe drought came and went within about a century. Through it all, people kept walking the same shoreline for nearly 2,000 years. A team led by Kathleen Springer and Jeffrey Pigati of the U.S. Geological Survey dug a new trench at the footprint site. Jessica Tierney of the University of Arizona reconstructed the climate from its mud. The layers at White Sands National Park record conditions in steps of about 50 years, roughly a human generation. “Even though these footprints have been buried in the gypsum mud for more than 20,000 years, they look like someone walked out on the playa yesterday,” Tierney said. “This is an incredibly rare opportunity to be able to do paleoclimate reconstruction and combine it with archeology in the same exact place.” The original trench, dug in 2020, was 36 feet (11 meters) long. The team extended it to 82...

Burrowing shrimp are a pest well known to shellfish growers. These pale-bodied creatures excavate mud as they dig into the ground, creating piles of sediment that suffocate oysters and clams growing o...

Burrowing shrimp are a pest well known to shellfish growers. These pale-bodied creatures excavate mud as they dig into the ground, creating piles of sediment that suffocate oysters and clams growing o...

Ostfriesland Games turns road bowling, ditch vaulting, mudflat sled racing, shrimp peeling and tea serving into a retro arcade game. With real places in pixel art, local and worldwide high scores, and East Frisian humour. Even making tea can get hectic.

Ostfriesland Games turns road bowling, ditch vaulting, mudflat sled racing, shrimp peeling and tea serving into a retro arcade game. With real places in pixel art, local and worldwide high scores, and East Frisian humour. Even making tea can get hectic.

Ostfriesland Games turns road bowling, ditch vaulting, mudflat sled racing, shrimp peeling and tea serving into a retro arcade game. With real places in pixel art, local and worldwide high scores, and East Frisian humour. Even making tea can get hectic.

Ostfriesland Games turns road bowling, ditch vaulting, mudflat sled racing, shrimp peeling and tea serving into a retro arcade game. With real places in pixel art, local and worldwide high scores, and East Frisian humour. Even making tea can get hectic.