Painted forest in La Gloria. Image: Paulina Aldunce
By Alejandra Olguin Moncada
The trees are colorful.
But it’s not the leaves what gives them the color; it’s the trunk. And it’s not brown or red, it’s yellow, pink, blue, white and orange. It’s paint. Continue reading
The hydrophone that records the sounds of the ocean for 24 hours is surrounded by an abundant school of Scorpis chilensis, a species endemic to the Juan Fernández Archipelago. Image: Iván Hinojosa
By Paula Díaz Levi
When Ivan Hinojosa was working on his doctorate in Australia, he studied how the reef’s sound oriented lobster larvae, which swam several kilometers from the open ocean to the coastal waters to find a place to settle. These sounds are generated by the interactions of different species, just as happens on land, and constitute guiding signals for these little organisms.
That research about the Australian lobster demonstrated the essential role of underwater sound and inspired an innovative project, this time in the Pacific Ocean along the Chilean coast at the Juan Fernández Archipelago, Easter Island and Quiriquina Island.
An angler at the Flint River. Image: Rocío Cano Muñoz
By Rocío Cano Muñoz
Next to the Flint River in Flint, Michigan, is a park full of trees with a plaque that commemorates the 25th anniversary of Earth Day.
The sound of the water flowing through that river and the nature around it, helps explain why that plaque is there. Near a red bridge, people photograph the landscape. Nearby, men fish while, standing and looking at the water cascade or they sit and wait for a bite.
Students at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Concepcion, Chile, participate in an exercise led by Knight Center faculty. Image: David Poulson
By David Poulson
Chile’s Chiflon del Diablo coal mine descends more than 3,000 feet below sea level before extending some five miles under the Pacific Ocean.
Miners no longer undertake the back-breaking, thigh-burning trek through low tunnels to extract coal – the mine closed in 1990. It’s now a tourist attraction operated by former miners and one that I visited as part of a 10-day swing through Chile while teaching environmental journalism with Knight Center Director Eric Freedman and Research Director Bruno Takahashi.
The three of us recently lectured at four universities in three Chilean cities as part of a $40,000 project funded by the U.S. State Department to further investigative reporting in that country. Continue reading