It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week. On September 29, 2009, just south of the islands that make up the Independent State of Samoa in Polynesia, an earthquake…

Unless you’ve been living on the, er, Moon, you can hardly have failed to notice that today1 marks the 40th anniversary of the historic landing of the Apollo 11 mission – during which, Neil Armstrong became the first human being…

“Best” is a subjective word at, err… best. What one person or group values as the “top” will never be the same for everyone – still, when you’re looking for something and you want the “best”, it’s always nice when…

This enormous hexagon, a mile and a half in diameter, looks like some kind of massive occult symbol etched in the scrub on the remote western coast of Australia, 700 miles north of Perth. In fact, we’re looking at a…

Obscure geography trivia time: where would you find the steepest street in the world? You might guess San Francisco. If you’re a Guinness Book of Records-reading smart alec, you might say New Zealand. As it turns out, you’d be wrong…

Peering out the window of the little airtaxi that has brought you to The Rat’s Nest, or Rottnest Island, 18 km southwest off the coast of Australia, you’ll notice the island’s name spelled out in trees. This little island, only…