What are snowflakes? Is it true that no two are alike?

On the 28th of January, 1887, the town of Fort Keogh in Montana was experiencing unusually heavy snowfall. A ranch owner named Matt Coleman became a witness to this unique natural phenomenon. Amidst the falling snowflakes, one attracted his attention above all the rest: it was nearly 16 inches wide and 8 inches thick! Even today, it still holds the status of the largest snowflake ever recorded. 

Such large flakes appear during warm winter weather. It is much colder up in the atmosphere, where snowflakes form. As they fall, they melt a little and stick together. If you catch one on your mitten, you can see that it actually consists of several different flakes. And each one is unique. 

But how do we know that? Has someone examined every snowflake in the world and proved once and for all that no two of them are alike? Of course not! But that doesn’t stop scientists from confidently stating there could never be two identical snowflakes. To understand why, we have to figure out what snowflakes are and how they appear. 

Story told by Garrett Tucker.

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Living in a city is very different from living in a rural area. But did you know that even climate and weather can drastically change as you enter a big city? Temperature, wind, and humidity in an urban environment are not the same as outside of it. Why is that? 

Story told by Garrett Tucker. 
You can discover even more about science and the world around us in our magazine, so head over to oyla.us to check it out!

Toothy ichthyosaurs, giant plesiosaurs, flying pterosaurs... What beasts could possibly be more terrifying? For one woman who spent her life among these fossilized giants, the problems of poverty, gender inequality, and theft of her life’s work proved to be much more ugly monsters than these. 

Story told by Garrett Tucker. 

You can discover even more about science and the world around us in our magazine, so head over to oyla.us to check it out!