Dry Lands Revealed: How Are Deserts Created? Take the Quiz!

A poetic dive into the Italian good-luck phrase in bocca al lupo — “into the mouth of the wolf” — the argument Italians are still having about the correct reply, and what predators actually do to a landscape.

A poetic dive into “dirge” — a word for the music of grief, which turns out to be the crumpled remains of a Latin word meaning guide me.

A poetic dive into the German idiom auf dem Zahnfleisch gehen — “to walk on the gums” — and what the suspended architecture of a single tooth reveals about the first thing exhaustion takes from you.