Have you ever heard of the Ig Nobel Prizes? Yes, they are satirical, having been established in 1991 by Marc Abrahams and the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, but they are real and taken very seriously in some quarters. According to the Improbable Research website, “The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements so surprising
Recently I saw a headline that really got my attention: Do any animals call each other by name? It’s quite possible. Scientists have discovered that young bottlenose dolphins create signature whistles that are individually distinctive. They use the whistles to find each other and can recognize other dolphins from the frequency and “shape” of the whistle. Also, researchers
There are many natural wonders in the universe. Start with the sheer size — estimates of the total number of galaxies range from 200 billion to two trillion, with each galaxy containing anywhere from 100 million to 400 billion stars. And then there are the mysteries. Just what are dark matter and dark energy? How
We need heroes. The ancient Greeks had Ulysses and Hercules (actually Heracles was his Greek name). More modern times have given us the likes of Harry Potter and Superman. We look up to real people, too. In politics, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are at the top of many lists. In the military, Sergeant Alvin
Have you ever wondered why water expands as it freezes? Or why it changes temperature more slowly than other liquids? Science has known for years about water’s weird properties, but they haven’t been able to find a reason. Until now. Evidence has been found that water is actually two liquids, one denser, and one less
Now that it’s spring, we can expect all those animals who slept through the winter start to emerge ready to face the world again. But do any animals actually sleep through the summer? Yes! If winter sleep is called hibernation, its flip side is estivation, defined by Merriam-Webster as “the state or condition of torpidity
On January 21, 1971, Apollo 14 launched toward the moon with astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, and (former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper) Stuart Roosa on board. Most people remember this mission as when Alan Shepard played golf on the moon. But Roosa, flying above the moon’s surface in the Command Module, had brought along
Most people consider their pets to be members of their family. This is especially true for dogs. What’s more, many owners feel they know what their dogs are thinking and can communicate with them on a basic level. That’s why I was intrigued by the article “Top 10 Smartest Dogs: Find Out if Your Pup
How many times have you read an account of a natural disaster and thought, “I wish we had better warning systems”? Our weather and monitoring instruments, sophisticated as they are, still have serious limitations. We can’t predict earthquakes, for example. And yet much better warning systems do exist. It appears animals’ senses are finely tuned
How many times a year do you change a battery somewhere in your home? From smoke detectors to remotes, there are enough electrical devices in our lives that keeping a supply of several different types is virtually a necessity. And then there is the disposal problem… That’s why news of a study published on April 30