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				<title><![CDATA[Southern New Mexico Travel and Tourism Information: Activities, Attractions, History, and Culture - Articles - ]]></title>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Rio Mimbres]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/101/1/Rio-Mimbres/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[Autumn slips across the desert quietly. Although nights grow chill, summer's heat lingers in the afternoons, and the greenery brought on by summer rains simply fades to dusty olive, bleached straw, and weathered brown. As the soil dries out, mesquites, desert willows, and ocotillo drop their leaves without any fanfare. But here and there where water flows - a spring, stream, an irrigation ditch, or a river - autumn shows in the rich yellows and golds of cottonwood trees. ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2003 03:13:57 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[The Chihuahuan Desert]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/100/1/The-Chihuahuan-Desert/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA["As we toiled across these sterile plains, where no tree offered its friendly shade, the sun glowing fiercely, and the wind hot from the parched earth - the thought would keep suggesting itself, Is this the land which we have purchased, and are to survey and keep at such a cost? As far as the eye can reach stretches one unbroken waste, barren, wild, and worthless." ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2003 03:11:28 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Lichens - a case of kidnapping]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/283/1/Lichens---a-case-of-kidnapping/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[In 1867, Simon Schwendener startled the scientific world when he announced to the Swiss Naturalists' Club that lichens were not the distinct organism they had long been thought to be, but rather were formed of two separate organisms: a fungus and an alga. Leading lichenologists were outraged at the radical idea; not for 50 years would Schwendener's theory be accepted. But once it was, lichens were seen as a classic example of a mutually-beneficial symbiosis: The alga, able to photosynthesize, provides food for the fungus; the fungus provides shelter and water to the alga. Some 20,000 kinds of this unique association grow on earth, living in almost every environment, from within Antarctic rocks to the surface of desert soils. Lichens can withstand years of desiccation by simply becoming dormant. They revive again with miniscule amounts of water - in the desert, humid night air suffices. While dormant, lichens can also stand searing heat and extreme cold; some species can survive temperatures as high as 180ºF and as low as 100ºF below freezing. Some arctic lichens are estimated to be over 4,000 years old, among the world's oldest plants.]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Sat, 11 Jan 2003 22:10:39 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Mirages - optical illusions]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/260/1/Mirages---optical-illusions/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[In 1959, the Smithsonian Institution Annual Report carried the story of strange mirages seen near Yuma, Arizona. On hot, unusually still days, a clear image of a city appeared in the desert to the west of Yuma. It was no phantom either - the shimmering image was unmistakably that of San Diego, California, 150 miles west on the Pacific Coast, beyond several mountain ranges.]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Sat, 11 Jan 2003 02:59:33 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Playas]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/244/1/Playas/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[On these hot, dry June days when the horizon shimmers, set to dancing by the waves of heat that rise from the ground, I think of beaches. Not ocean beaches - playas -desert beaches. Playas are the dry, incredibly level beds of ancient lakes. Found in desert country throughout the southern Southwest and northern Mexico, and the Great Basin country of western Utah and Nevada, normally-dry playas occasionally fill with a skim of water - sometimes no more than inches deep over many square miles - after a heavy summer rain or spring snowmelt. Such lakes never last more than days or weeks, soon evaporating to leave behind huge expanses of mudflats drying in the sun. Playas were named by Spanish explorers for their resemblance to beaches - very flat beaches. ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Sat, 11 Jan 2003 01:57:34 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Kit Fox]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/311/1/Kit-Fox/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[Kit foxes are almost exclusively nocturnal, and thus rarely seen. These smallest of North American foxes are beautifully adapted to life in the desert. Their pale coloring makes them nearly invisible against a background of light-colored desert soils. Thickly-furred paws allow them to trot silently as they go about their nightly rounds; the hair also helps them float on sandy soils. Large ears help these dusk-to-dawn hunters to pick up night sounds. Even their small size may work to their advantage, making it easier to keep cool. ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Sat, 11 Jan 2003 00:43:51 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Kingfishers]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/310/1/Kingfishers/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[While jogging down the irrigation ditchbank one afternoon, I heard a loud, rattling call. A not-quite-crow-sized bird flew up from a perch above the ditch with strong, precise wingbeats, headed downstream. Its distinctive silhouette included a daggerlike bill and a ragged crest atop a big head. Its plumage was sober blue above and pure white below. A wide blue-gray stripe crossed its chest. ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Thu, 09 Jan 2003 00:42:35 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Birds - evaporative cooling]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/301/1/Birds---evaporative-cooling/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[One searingly hot summer afternoon, I spotted a thrasher standing quite still on the ground in the shade of a small tree. The thrasher's long curved bill was open and its wings slightly spread. At first I thought that it was sick. But then I noticed a plump white-winged dove perched on a branch overhead. It too held its mouth wide open; as I watched, I could see the skin of its throat pulsating rapidly. ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Thu, 09 Jan 2003 00:15:16 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[Creosote Bush - fragrance of the desert]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/286/1/Creosote-Bush---fragrance-of-the-desert/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[Creosote bush's distinctive odor and the leaves' shiny appearance are due to a resinous, varnish-like coating which helps the plant keep from drying out. The sophisticated coating also screens the sun's harsh rays, sheltering the delicate inner cells from heat and ultraviolet light. And it discourages grazers - the mix of waxes, volatile oils and other compounds tastes terrible and is indigestible to most animals. Only one small grasshopper, which spends its entire life on creosote, happily munches the resinous leaves. ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2003 22:18:57 PST</pubDate>
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					  <title><![CDATA[City of Rocks]]></title>
					  <link>http://www.southernnewmexico.com/articles/210/1/City-of-Rocks/Page1.html</link>
					  <description><![CDATA[The landscape of Southern New Mexico, West Texas, and northern Mexico has not always looked like it does today. In fact, beginning some 45 million years ago, parts of the region literally exploded, dramatically altering the shape of things. Time after time, volcanoes in the area erupted, spewing forth immense quantities of thick lava and clouds of boulder-to-dust-sized rock fragments. Torrential rains caused mudflows of volcanic debris to surge off the hillsides, drowning valleys and basins in mucky layers of debris. Lava oozed into horizontal and vertical cracks in the older layers, doming up whole areas, forming peaks, and hardening in rooster-comb-like dikes. ]]></description>
					  <author>no@spam.com (Susan Tweit)</author>
					  <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2003 04:25:37 PST</pubDate>
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