Frisky Animals #48

Back millions of years before Columbus, before the Mayflower, before even Leif the Lucky—America was a vastly different land, ruled for 80 million years by fierce reptiles and giant monsters whose remains are preserved in rocks, shales, and tar pits. This account traces how pterodactyls, towering tyrannosaurs, and massive salamanders dominated a prehistoric America of dank jungles and steamy swamps, until earthquakes reshaped the land and floods and cold gradually gave way to warm-blooded mammals that would inherit the continent.

African witch doctors have wielded enormous influence over their tribes for centuries, wielding spiritual authority rivaled only by the tribal chief himself through soothsaying and claims of communion with the dead. This non-fiction piece explores how some of these practitioners have earned dark reputations as sorcerers capable of casting deadly spells, and examines the mysterious wizardry traditions said to trace back to ancient Egypt that allegedly allow the most skilled adepts to invoke such curses without their victims' knowledge.