Uncategorized

Math

Fibonacci’s Missing Flowers

The number of petals that a flower has isn't always a Fibonacci number. For more math, visit the MathTrek blog.

Humans

The Influenza Epidemic of 1918

This eye-opening Web site from the National Archives and Records Administration features photos and documents related to the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed more people than died in World War I. Go to: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/

Humans

From the May 30, 1936, issue

A shaking mountain, a warm blood factory, and signaling with invisible heat rays.

Physics

String Trio: Novel instrument strums like guitar, rings like bell

A new type of musical instrument, equipped with Y-shaped strings, may be the first of a family of string instruments with unusual overtones typically heard in bells or gongs.

Archaeology

Stones of Contention: Tiny Homo species tied to ancient tool tradition

Controversial new discoveries suggest that our half-size evolutionary cousins who lived on the Indonesian island of Flores as recently as 12,000 years ago carried on a stone-toolmaking tradition passed down from the island's original colonizers more than 700,000 years ago.

Earth

Oil Booms: Whales don’t avoid noise of seismic exploration

Field tests in the Gulf of Mexico suggest that sperm whales there don't swim away from boats conducting seismic surveys of the seafloor, but the noise generated by such activity may be subtly affecting the whales' feeding behavior. With video.

Earth

Lazarus, the amphibian

The painted frog, unseen for more than a decade and feared to be extinct, has resurfaced in a remote desert highland of Colombia.

Earth

Pumped-up Poison Ivy: Carbon dioxide boosts plant’s size, toxicity

Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could make poison ivy grow much faster and become more toxic.