“Paddled”

Christopher Beam in GQ: On my first day at Shichahai Sports School, the elite athletic academy in Beijing, Coach Chang introduces me to his ping-pong class. “We have a new American student,” he says, peering out from behind the prescription sunglasses he wears indoors. As all eyes turn toward me, I feel a rush of […]

 







“Biblical-Type Floods Are Real, and They’re Absolutely Enormous”

The story of another scientist who was laughed at but whose truth eventually won. Long before the discovery of the scablands, geologists dismissed the role of catastrophic floods in interpreting European geology. . . . [J. Harlen] Bretz was a classic field geologist and a controversial figure throughout his career. In 1925 he presented the […]