How To Marry The Right Girl: A Mathematical Solution
Poor Johannes Kepler. One of the greatest astronomers ever, the man who figured out the laws of planetary motion, a genius, scholar and mathematician — in 1611, he needed a wife. The previous Mrs....
View ArticleWhen Numbers Bleed, Freeze, Starve And Die On A Battlefield: The Dark Poetry...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T7jMcstxY0
View ArticleIntriguing Lime Green Blobs Appear In The Andes Mountains. Are They Alive?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPvKxdZbBm8
View ArticleSo What If It's Ugly? It Just Keeps On Going ...
Far, far, far away is a great place to be — if you want to stay marvelous. There is a plant, called Welwitschia mirabilis (mirabilis being Latin for marvelous), found only one place on Earth. You can...
View ArticleJupiter's Dot And Mine. Why Life Is Unfair
When I was 9, my dad drew this picture of me. You will notice something on my left cheek — a little brown spot.That's a mole. The doctor called it "a birthmark." My mom called it "a beauty mark." I was...
View ArticleA Young Woman Falls In Love With Everything
You start with difference, with mystery. Some things spiral, some become spheres, some branch, some don't. We know that inert atoms quicken, become bees, goats, clouds, then dissolve back into...
View ArticleA Little Bird Either Learns Its Name Or Dies
I've been wondering lately, do animals invent names? As in names for themselves? Names for each other? I've always thought that what we do when we call ourselves "Ralph" or "Laura" is unique, something...
View ArticleHow Chocolate Might Save The Planet
When you unwrap it, break off a piece and stick it in your mouth, it doesn't remind you of the pyramids, a suspension bridge or a skyscraper; but chocolate, says materials scientist Mark Miodownik, "is...
View ArticleHow We Learned That Frogs Fly
There are places where frogs could be — but aren't.And places where frogs could be — and are.Ninety years ago, scientists were debating the question of animal dispersal. How come there are kangaroos in...
View ArticleLights, Lights, Lights, Action! A Crazy New Light Projector
What can you do with a spotlight?You can light a spot.But what if you give yourself more options and invent a tool that lets light spill, splash or tighten into a beam as thin as a pencil line — a beam...
View ArticleWrong! Deconstructing 5 Famous History Stories
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYzfKiIWN4ghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLvBCR1ZOVo
View ArticleTwo Glorious Science Experiments: One About Sex, The Other About Lunch
Done right, a good science experiment is simple, clear and revealing. Done splendidly, it's a tale you don't forget. Let's do the sex one first. It took place in Italy, in the 1760s, when a Catholic...
View ArticleWhat Not To Serve Buzzards For Lunch, A Glorious Science Experiment
OK, I'm doing great science experiments. We've done sex (see previous post). On to lunch!This is the story of a bird, a puzzle, and a painting. The painting, curiously, helped solve the puzzle, which...
View ArticleHer Baby Is At Risk; Lauren's Story
They're odds. That's all they are. Not fate, just probabilities. Lauren Weinstein, cartoonist, is having a baby, and she's told — out of the blue — that she and her husband are both carriers of the...
View ArticleTell Me, Wave, Where Did You Come From? Who Made You?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qQQXTMih1A
View ArticleA Tough Little Droplet Fights To Stick Around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbGz1njqhxUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtlgI34y3Wc
View ArticleThe Most Astonishing Wave-Tracking Experiment Ever
I'm standing on a beach and I see, a few hundred yards out, a mound of water heading right at me. It's not a wave, not yet, but a swollen patch of ocean, like the top of a moving beach ball, what...
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