On the winter solstice I chased a retreating moon over western Greenland and the Canadian arctic. On this long westward journey the sun appeared to set two times, and the earth sat in pale twilight glow. Coastal mountains rose up in the darkness, and sea ice filled the fjords that were not yet frozen. In…

A common sight along the roadsides and logging gaps of the lowland forests of Borneo is the slender gray trunk of a sun-loving tree with long, up-curving branches naked except for a few large leaves at the tip. These trees belong to the genus Macaranga, in the Euphorbiaceae family. They seem quite unremarkable, but working…