Tim Johnson

2 weeks ago | chicagotribune.com | Tim Johnson

I had a major infestation of magnolia scale last year and a company came and treated the trees. Should I have them sprayed again this year? — Jeff Finnegan, AlgonquinMany gardeners, as well as the horticulturists at the Chicago Botanic Garden, had issues with magnolia scale last year, and it’s a pest to watch closely for in 2025. The Garden’s plant health care supervisor just let me know that he is still seeing live scale on magnolias that were treated for scale last year.

2 weeks ago | theepochtimes.com | Tim Johnson

There are several ways you can get your message across. 4/5/2025Updated: 4/5/2025It was more than two decades ago, and I was a backpacker arriving in Athens for the first time. The Summer Games were coming to town. While the Greek capital had been operating a metro dating back to 1869, the system had been extended and renovated in anticipation of the Olympics. At that time—2003—some things were marked in English. But many, still, were not.

2 weeks ago | theepochtimes.com | Tim Johnson

Having disembarked our small expedition ship this morning in Puerto Natales, we rode a carriage through a broad, flat, dun-colored valley to the national park. The drive revealed little about the splendor that awaited just a bit further along the road. Yes, the Andes were there—dark rises off to both sides, capped with snow and sometimes enveloped in cloud. But at this point, they were more the suggestion of mountains rather than a high-altitude wonderland. That would soon change.

2 weeks ago | theepochtimes.com | Tim Johnson

Penguins in Antarctica and matriarchs in the Gobi Desert can teach us surprising lessons about resilience, kindness, and perspective. 4/4/2025Updated: 4/4/2025Time was ticking as the hot desert sun beat a hasty retreat toward the horizon. Already rusty, the sand and stones all around me seemed to glow in the soft, golden, late-day light. It was an otherworldly, strangely beautiful scene. But it was starting to look a little doubtful that I would find any dinosaurs at all.

3 weeks ago | nature.com | Simon R. Turner |Bernard Wood |Tim Johnson |Craig O’Neill

AbstractAlthough Earth, together with other terrestrial planets, must have had an early-formed protocrust, the chemical composition of this crust has received little attention. The protocrust was extracted from an extensive magma ocean formed by accretion and melting of asteroidal bodies1. Both experimental and chronological data suggest that the silicate melt ascending from this magma ocean formed in equilibrium with, or after, metal was extracted to form Earth’s core.