Aurora Francis

Aurora Francis From Valencia to the Amazon, and New York to Buenos Aires, Alex Sakalis explores the stories behind the most stunning opera venues across the globe.

It was always thought that whales also engaged in this ‘brain half asleep’ behaviour. They may well do, but researchers ...
15/02/2023

It was always thought that whales also engaged in this ‘brain half asleep’ behaviour. They may well do, but researchers discovered something extraordinary about the sleep habits of s***m whales. They came across a group of them completely asleep and bobbing vertically in the water like a strange aquatic forest of cetaceans.

For Marieke Gow, co-owner of the Artisan Inn in Trinity, it's not surprising that it took outsiders to fully appreciate ...
13/02/2023

For Marieke Gow, co-owner of the Artisan Inn in Trinity, it's not surprising that it took outsiders to fully appreciate the region's dramatic beauty. Gow said when her Dutch-born mother, Tineke Gow, first visited Trinity more than 40 years ago; the once-bustling shipbuilding village was filled with empty houses. Fascinated by the cliff-lined bay and the village's historic splendour, she bought one of the oldest houses – a dilapidated saltbox – and hired local carpenters, whose shipbuilding jobs were gone, to restore it.

Up ahead, the outlook for a road trip is not promising. Sheer rock walls, so steep that they keep the valley floor in sh...
06/02/2023

Up ahead, the outlook for a road trip is not promising. Sheer rock walls, so steep that they keep the valley floor in shadow for months every year, close the Simadalen valley off from the rest of the world on three sides. Where the fjord ends, the road passes through forests of pine and spruce, crosses a rushing stream fed by waterfalls and then arrives at a fork. Turn right and the road soon peters out in the forest, its onward path blocked by rock walls hundreds of metres high. Turn left in the direction of Kjeåsen and the journey seems equally unpromising for want of any obvious way forward.

She travelled around Indigenous communities and heard many stories of Indigenous peoples' reciprocal relationship with t...
30/01/2023

She travelled around Indigenous communities and heard many stories of Indigenous peoples' reciprocal relationship with the Ojibwe spirit horse, seeing the animals as guides and teachers. Such as the Métis fishermen who partnered with the horses each winter to haul fish off frozen lakes – although the horses were never domesticated back then, they would use their hooves to create ice fishing holes in return for food and shelter from the fishermen.

It’s a familiar, practically iconic, image. A group of primates, huddled together, grooming one another. Delicately pick...
17/01/2023

It’s a familiar, practically iconic, image. A group of primates, huddled together, grooming one another. Delicately picking at, and stroking, the fur of a companion and popping the occasional tasty morsel into their mouths. But what purpose does it serve? This allogrooming, or tending to the pelt of a member of the same species, is certainly social, used to indicate dominant social structure as well as to help fend off disease from germ-carrying parasites or ticks.

Stiklestad is where the story of modern Norway began. It was here, in 1030, that the Christian King Olav Haraldsson was ...
10/01/2023

Stiklestad is where the story of modern Norway began. It was here, in 1030, that the Christian King Olav Haraldsson was killed by a Viking army. Despite his apparent defeat, Olav and his death became the rallying cry for the spread of Christianity and a turning point in the struggle for a unified Norway, with the battle marking the beginning of the end for Viking Norway and its feuding chiefs. In 1164, Pope Alexander III confirmed Olav's sainthood, and the site of the battle – along with Trondheim's cathedral, where Olav's tomb remains – has been a place of pilgrimage ever since.

Nevertheless, despite a 28 percent loss of tree cover in the last two decades, with magnificent primary rain forests giv...
28/12/2022

Nevertheless, despite a 28 percent loss of tree cover in the last two decades, with magnificent primary rain forests giving way to commercial palm oil plantations, 54 percent of Malaysia’s land surface is still covered with forests. It is also one of the world’s mega biodiverse countries, with a stunning variety of flora and fauna in its rainforests.

The red soil on the mountain I was standing near, called gelack, is caused by haematite, an iron oxide thought to be der...
21/12/2022

The red soil on the mountain I was standing near, called gelack, is caused by haematite, an iron oxide thought to be derived from the island's volcanic rocks. Not only is it a valuable mineral for industrial purposes, it also plays an important role in local cuisine. Used as a spice, it lends an earthy flavour to curries and goes perfectly with the local bread called tomshi, which means "a handful of something".

Maskelyne thus elected to personally oversee the work that would eventually give Schiehallion something akin to celebrit...
14/12/2022

Maskelyne thus elected to personally oversee the work that would eventually give Schiehallion something akin to celebrity status in the hiking world, as evidenced by the 20,000 hikers who visit each year. They each pass a commemorative cairn, celebrating the work of Maskelyne and his team, in the Braes of Foss carpark at the start of the hike.

The islands were the setting for a diplomatic crisis in 1929, when a Parisian banker decided to build a house here; and ...
07/12/2022

The islands were the setting for a diplomatic crisis in 1929, when a Parisian banker decided to build a house here; and again in 1939, when the French artist and yachtsman known as Marin-Marie carried a prefabricated hut to Maîtresse and raised the French flag over the island.

Peter Alexander Tager was a stowaway on the Good Intent, a Liverpool cargo ship carrying a load of timber back to Englan...
30/11/2022

Peter Alexander Tager was a stowaway on the Good Intent, a Liverpool cargo ship carrying a load of timber back to England from Quebec. The Brophys set sail on an Irish famine ship called the Miracle, carrying hundreds of immigrants to a hopeful new life in Canada. Robert Best was returning to the Channel Islands on the Perry, a ship loaded with salt cod from the port of Gaspé.

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