Arts & Life

Watermelon Snow

Montana Public Radio | By Beth Anne Austein

Published April 25, 2014 at 8:00 AM MDT

4/27/14 & 4/28/14: This week on "Fieldnotes:"Watermelon Snow," by Boo Curry.

"In the Rocky Mountains' high-elevation snowfields and glaciers live some of the natural world's oddest creatures. Greek philosopher Aristotle reported seeing them 2,000 years ago. Around the world, there are 350 species of these single-celled freshwater algae, surviving in melting snowfields and returning year after year to the same alpine locations. But what catches the eyes of hikers is that this species of green algea is not green, but red."

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Beth Anne Austein

Beth Anne Austein has been spinning tunes on the air (The Folk Show, Dancing With Tradition, Freeforms), as well as recording, editing and mixing audio for Montana Public Radio and Montana PBS, since the Clinton Administration. She’s jockeyed faders or "fixed it in post” for The Plant Detective; Listeners Bookstall; Fieldnotes; Musicians Spotlight; The Write Question; Storycorps; Selected Shorts; Bill Raoul’s music series; orchestral and chamber concerts; lecture series; news interviews; and outside producers’ programs about topics ranging from philosophy to ticks.

See stories by Beth Anne Austein