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Mushroom Madness 
Fungi can cure or kill, nourish life, and also decompose it back into soil. Fossil evidence for fungi is limited, but the ability to analyze molecular data has led to revelations about the evolution of this extraordinary family of...
Fool’s Gold: The Myth of Tiburcio Vasquez 
“And still of a winter’s night, they say,  when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon  tossed upon cloudy seas,    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight  over the purple moor,    A...
Billions in Flight: Migratory Birds 
Autumn doesn’t officially begin until the equinox on September 22, but all across North America birds are already on the wing—billions of them. Migration times and destinations vary based on the species and variables like weather and food sources—some...
One-Room Schoolhouse 
Back to school. A hundred years ago in Topanga, it would have been on foot—and often barefoot—to the little, red, one-room schoolhouse by the creek in the bend of the dirt road.  Public education in California was still relatively...
NewsBeat

Annual Beach Report 

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area beaches received good marks on Heal the Bay’s annual Beach Report. Every year, the nonprofit organization ranks the beaches and freshwater sites it tests for bacterial pollution. The recent 17-million-gallon sewage spill at...
Storyland

To Be a Mermaid 

An Interview with Linden Wolbert Among the oaks and rocky canyons of Topanga lives a real live mermaid. Linden Wolbert is a professional mermaid or entrepre-mermaid and ocean “edutainer” who uses her freediving skills to perform underwater, transforming herself...