Julia Sklar

Sep 17, 2024 | sierraclub.org | Julia Sklar

THE FIRST INDICATION of the home electrification revolution in Maine was a yard sign with a phone number advertising "Heat Pump Cleanings!" just moments after crossing the state line. Condensers hung from many houses like rectangular barnacles. Residents in this state are installing heat pumps three times faster than the national average. One of them, powered by community solar, is attached to Anne Pappas's mobile home in Brunswick.

Jun 14, 2024 | nationalgeographic.com | Julia Sklar

While PTSD is a form of chronic stress where the initial stressful event has passed, other forms of chronic stress arise when the event is ongoing, such as racial trauma. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) overlooks this experience, despite plenty of people trying to figure out how to live with the effects of racial trauma in a resilient way—choosing a response to chronic societal stress that leads to growth rather than harm.

May 8, 2024 | nationalgeographic.com | Julia Sklar

Bite down on a perfectly ripe strawberry and the pure sweetness of the juice hits you first. Then comes something far more complex: Your tongue feels rough seeds punctuating soft fruit, and a hint of sour breaks through the sweetness. If you had to name it, the word “tang” may drift forward. This isn’t exactly a taste, but some intangible quality that makes a strawberry go so well with whipped cream and hold its own as a bastion of summer.

Apr 10, 2024 | sierraclub.org | Julia Sklar

The fairy wasp is camp. Its wings are two vertical spoons tasseled like the sleeves of a suede rodeo jacket. Despite the wasp's showiness—and its presence on every continent except Antarctica—very few people have seen one in real life. That's because it's tiny. Unfathomably so. The smallest insect in the world is a blind, wingless fairy wasp called Dicopomorpha echmepterygis. At 0.139 millimeters, its total body length is the width of a human hair.

Apr 10, 2024 | nationalgeographic.com | Julia Sklar

Susan Charles loves figuring out what keeps people happy. Throughout her career studying emotional processes across the adult life span, the professor of psychological science at University of California, Irvine has returned to this research focus again and again. Most emotions are experienced in a social context, so “what keeps us happy is often what keeps us safe,” she says.