About once every other week for as long as you have been alive, zooming space rocks have penetrated the shell of gases surrounding our blue planet.

The crested auklet looks like a smiling clown that never blinks. It is probably the only seabird that smells like a tangerine.

The glorious paper birch outside the window that has for the past three weeks beamed a sunny glow is losing its luster, one golden coin at a time.

Here in middle Alaska north of Fairbanks, a trapper wearing a flannel shirt, leather gloves, and a bushy beard tromps through the forest.