It’s that time of the year again. Carlsbad’s iconic Flower Fields opens for the season Wednesday, March 1, 2023. That’s 55 acres of Giant Tecolote Ranunculus and a variety of new events through May 14. The attraction’s new theme, “Live Colorfully,” covers everything from the ranunculus, a flower known for its large, double-petaled blooms that sit atop tall, straight stems, to the seemingly endless rows of…
The Breeders’ Cup has selected Del Mar to host the 41st world championships next year, marking the third time the picturesque Pacific track will stage the season-ending graded stakes races that feature the top thoroughbreds. Del Mar will present 14 Grade 1 races with purses worth more than $31 million on Nov. 1-2, 2024. The track last hosted in 2021 at 50% capacity because of…
Psychological trauma from extreme weather and climate events, such as wildfires, can have long-term impacts on survivors’ brains and cognitive functioning, especially how they process distractions, my team’s new research shows. Climate change is increasingly affecting people around the world, including through extreme heat, storm damage and life-threatening events like wildfires. In previous research, colleagues and I showed that in the aftermath of the 2018…
In “an extremely rare occurrence,” a pregnant male seadragon made history at a La Jolla aquarium. The weedy seadragon’s pregnancy marks “the first successful transfer of eggs from a female seadragon to a male” at the Seadragons & Seahorses habitat at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, a Jan. 9 news release from the aquarium said. “We’re elated to…
Lights, camera, weirdness. “Married at First Sight,” the Lifetime Channel reality TV show matching total strangers in unholy matrimony upon first meeting, shoots its brand of unreal magic through Feb. 5 at the ultra-exclusive Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. Check it out. If they’ll let you. They threw me off the set for having the audacity to walk up the Inn’s primrose path, lingering for…
Hats, or no hats, what first started in 2014 continues forward this year when Del Mar’s ninth fall racing meet – the “Bing Crosby Season” in honor of the track’s iconic founder – begins its four-week run Friday and goes through to Sunday, December 4. Racing will be conducted over 13 days primarily on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday basis each week with a first post…
If you live in Orange or San Diego County, hopefully you’re aware that San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has been turned into a nuclear waste dump for the foreseeable future. If you live on planet earth, you’re wise to be tracking domestic and foreign moves to increase reliance on nuclear energy. The United States ushered in the atomic age in 1945 by dropping a…
The Breeders’ Cup World Championships, the ultimate handicapping challenge for horseplayers, returns to Del Mar in Southern California this weekend, with Saturday’s schedule featuring nine championship races, including the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf and $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. The latter features an elite field. Seven of the nine horses already have won a Grade 1 race and six of the nine have earned…
Do NOT smell the flowers Morbid curiosity-seekers may be flocking to Encinitas soon, hoping to catch a whiff of a soon-to-bloom Amorphophallus titanum. The so-called “corpse flower,” named for the pungent stench emitted when it blooms, is expected to make an appearance later this month at the San Diego Botanic Garden (SDBG) in North County. This world-famous, ultra-rare specimen has not yet bloomed, but it is…
For months, residents of a suburban Encinitas neighborhood have clashed with the hemp farm next door, blaming the farm for the nausea, dizziness and respiratory problems that they say have bothered them since October. Bob Echter, owner of Fox Point Farms which is home to the hemp operation, and Josh Schneider, CEO of Cultivaris Hemp which has been operating the hemp farm on Echter’s property,…