Colombian coffee at a crossroads
“You should be getting red fruits with flower notes and, of course, some acidity,” says Jaime Duque, the owner of E&D ...
Back in Colombia
Victor Cañas is sitting on an old wooden bench in the shade across from Bar Quindio, a pool hall lined with waist-to-ceiling ...
Catching Fog in Lima
“This is the real Peru,” says eighteen-year-old Frank Rodas as he spreads his arms. He adjusts his baseball hat and looks ...
A science writer on the road
Colombian coffee at a crossroads
“You should be getting red fruits with flower notes and, of course, some acidity,” says Jaime Duque, the owner of E&D Cafe, a specialty roaster and “coffee lab” in Bogotá, ...
Back in Colombia
Victor Cañas is sitting on an old wooden bench in the shade across from Bar Quindio, a pool hall lined with waist-to-ceiling windows that opened 90 years ago—about the time he was ...
Catching Fog in Lima
“This is the real Peru,” says eighteen-year-old Frank Rodas as he spreads his arms. He adjusts his baseball hat and looks down into a hazy valley at Villa Maria del Triunfo, a ...
Brewing in Thin Air
On a clear September day in 1998, four guys carrying extra-heavy packs climbed to the top of Mount Whitney in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. Waking before sunrise, the group ...
Munich Scientists Tinker with Yeast
A group of young scientists in Germany has managed to brew a beer with added flavors that doesn’t break the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot, the 1516 purity law that stipulates beer must only ...
A Farm Run on Homemade Biofuel in Argentina
Just outside of Buenos Aires, upon a patchwork of cornfields and cow pastures where gauchos still roam, a grassroots movement is taking shape. One farmer looking to cut costs and offset ...
Hanging in the Balance: Diversifying Energy Portfolios in Latin America
Latin America has grown impressively over the last couple years. Argentina, Chile, Colombia—even Peru—have seen their economies expand by four to nine percent annually. Fueled by ...
Colombia’s disappearing glaciers
Colombia has lost 50 percent of its glaciers in the last fifty years. Today, six glaciers remain nestled among the highest peaks of the three mountain ranges that traverse the country. ...
American companies cautiously optimistic about Argentina’s shale reserves
Argentina's recently-nationalized oil company YPF has announced “satisfactory” results coming from the first vertical well drilled in the Bajo del Toro block of Neuquen's Vaca Muerta, a ...
Lager Yeast Genome Project
Renowned worldwide for her wine, Argentina is now adding craft beer to her long list of reasons to visit. Microbreweries are popping up all around the mountain towns of northern Patagonia, ...
The Challenge of Cutting Down on Excessive Medical Tests
Doctors have a term for it: “defensive medicine.” It’s when the rash on your hand leads to tests for syphilis—that sort of thing. And it’s a big problem. Most of us know ...
Glaciers in Chilean Patagonia tell a story of climate change
Slicing through the Andes mountains until they reach the saw-toothed fjords of southern Chile are a series of seventy glaciers that make up the Northern Patagonian Icefield—almost all of ...
Argentina’s Dead Sea and its susceptibility to climate change
Salt lakes are formed when the water's only exit is evaporation. Over time, the saline compounds left behind turn the water brackish. Among the largest salt lakes in the world are the ...
Patagonia’s Tuco-tuco, a case study in extinction
Bariloche, Argentina — In the foothills east of the Andes lies the Patagonian steppe, a transitional landscape between forest and desert in central Argentina that is dotted with hardy ...
Darwin’s Fox: The Rarest in South America
Darwin’s fox (Lycalopex fulvipes) is having a hard time finding refuge. Only a few hundred of the squat, dark-coated foxes survive today in the remaining patches of temperate rainforest ...
Colombia’s FARC rebels. Headed for defeat or hunkering down?
Withering military pressure by President Álvaro Uribe’s government has forced Colombian’s largest leftist rebel group, the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), to dig ...