Articles from the author

For 500 years, explorers nudged their ships through these Arctic waters, vainly seeking a shortcut to the riches of the East. The Northwest Passage, a deadly maze of sea ice, narrow straits and misshapen islands, still holds the traces of those who failed.

Swathed head to toe in surgical garb and huddled over a table, George Nakatsukasa slowly places a sturdy cover over the electronic heart of his six-wheeled patient.

In a chandelliered ballroom at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Arcadia, California, USA, a roomful of men and women are seeking the perfect piece of real estate but rejecting nearly everything they see.

Biologist Gerry Kuzyk was hiking with his wife in the remote reaches of the Yukon when he caught the putrid scent of caribou dung wafting through the chill air. Then he saw it - the biggest pile of animal droppings he had ever seen, 8 feet high and stretching over a half-mile of mountainside.