Science/Technology

The Los Angeles River has once again come to life, supercharged with rainwater. Freeways have flooded. And California’s Sierra Nevada mountains — the so-called “snowy mountains” — are living up to their name.

This is all thanks to the huge ocean-atmosphere event Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert is calling a “Godzilla El Niño.”

Most people tend to think to think of gardening as a summer activity. Horticulturist Gerard Lordahl, however, says winter is the perfect time to pay attention to your garden. 

“In the wintertime, right now I mean, people are protecting their plants,” Lordahl says. “Soil mulching is really important, and lots of our community gardeners are composting, and these are all things that can be done now. Protecting your plants through the winter, giving as much water to them as possible on those mild days, and then mulching.” 

Searching for a 14th Century manuscript for a school report? How about an old baseball photo for your stash of sports memorabilia? You might try the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections.

Every month, Harper’s magazine contributing editor Rafil Kroll-Zaidi combs the journals for science’s most fascinating — and flummoxing — facts. He collects those facts in a column called Findings.

Part science journalism and part poetry, you might think of Findings as a news ticker for science’s most hilarious ephemera

The jerboa is a rodent that looks like a mouse with crazy, springy hind legs. Some have compared it to a kangaroo crossed with a mouse or a tiny, fuzzy rodent t-rex. It’s native to Asia and Africa, and has developed strong hind legs to help it evade predators in barren desert areas with few places to hide. 

Video producer Christian Baker recently spent a few hours with researchers who are studying the jerboa.