Greetings from the Rhône Glacier, where a gash of pink highlights how it’s melting
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
“What do you think would look better: pink or green?”
The bubblegum hue won. A scientist from the Swiss public university ETH Zurich nodded, pulling out a bottle of pink dye to release from the top of the Rhône Glacier in the Swiss Alps.
Turning the rivulet flowing down a melting glacier into a bright-pink stream was the least scientific test carried out this day. It was intended as a visual aid for journalists like me accompanying the team of scientists measuring the pace at which water flows off this glacier. The result: Faster than ever.
On the August day I joined the team, we were surrounded by a 360-degree aural landscape of running water. Some of those currents were coming from beneath the ice we gingerly trekked on, testing each step with a little weight so that we didn’t fall through one of the dozens of massive cracks. As the team took turns leaping over one, I was reminded of the packing list we were emailed before the trip — which included “Ice pick (Eispickel) in case of a slip into a crevasse.”
Fortunately, none of us had to use our Eispickel on this particular day. But we did use our cameras after the team poured the bottle of pink solution into a glacial stream — temporarily turning it into an even more unnatural display than the quickly vanishing glacier itself.
See more photos from around the world:
- Greetings from the Mediterranean, where dolphins swim alongside a migrant rescue ship
- Greetings from Kyiv, where you might stumble across Zelenskyy taking a stroll
- Greetings from Guatemala, where one person’s trash becomes another’s colorful art
- Greetings from American University of Beirut, where more than 1,000 cats roam
- Greetings from a peaceful woodland near the River Thames west of London
Supreme Court seems poised to further undercut the Voting Rights Act
The court's conservative majority could invalidate the section of the Voting Rights Act aimed at ensuring that minority voters are not shut out of the process of drawing new congressional district lines.
Hegseth orders troops to watch his speech decrying a ‘woke’ military
During the speech last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lectured senior military officials on the "warrior ethos," focusing on fitness and grooming standards, and calling out "fat generals."
The federal government is still shut down. Here’s what that means across the country
The federal government is currently shut down. The NPR Network is following the ways the government shutdown is affecting services across the country.
Argentina: The queen of bailanta
One of the most listened-to genres in the Americas, photographers and storytellers Karla Gachet and Ivan Kashinsky document cumbia in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and the United States.
Democratic governors form a public health alliance in a rebuke of Trump
They're framing it as a way to share data and messages about threats, emergency preparedness and public health policy at a time when the federal government isn't doing its job in public health.
A celebration of the South’s rich — and messy — heritage, delivered on a plate
In a new cookbook, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty pays homage to the rich tapestry of cultures that have shaped Southern cuisine — and keeps a gimlet eye on the region's complicated history.
