Here's something that caught my attention in the news yesterday. A lone gray whale was spotted wandering around in the Mediterranean--the first of its kind to be seen in the Atlantic Ocean in at least two centuries.
There used to be gray whales in the Atlantic as well as the Pacific, but when their population shrank in the 1700s, only the Pacific ones remained. Scientists think that the best explanation for this stray whale is that it navigated the Northwest Passage: that is, it swam from its Pacific home north into the Arctic Ocean and all the way across Canada, finally ending up in the Mediterranean. An expert speculates that the cetacean "is now wondering where the hell it is." (This is the same Northwest Passage that had decorated British explorers eating their boots back in the 19th century. These days, it's much easier to get through the ice, thanks ...
