NBC NEWS - In California’s boom-and-bust climate, Death Valley has offered some of the strangest scenes over the past few years. Some of the area’s perennial creosote bushes died back during a severe drought that hampered the region through 2022. Then torrential downpours — from the remnants of Hurricane Hilary and subsequent storms — revived...
VOGUE — In a wilderness area at the northwest corner of Joshua Tree National Park, ecologist Lynn Sweet treks across the high desert as raucous pinyon jays swoop overhead. She navigates carefully across the landscape of blackbrush and fragrant junipers to inspect the stump of a Joshua tree. Much of the tree’s trunk, branches, and...
CALMATTERS - As California officials desperately try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Chris Miller is coaxing a sample of the virus to grow in a secure laboratory at UC Davis. Working in a laboratory nestled inside containment rooms and cut off from the world by filters, scientists dressed in space suit-like protective...