The beginning of the story of pencils started with a lightning. Graphite, the main material for producing pencil, was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale in England when a lightning struck a local tree during a thunder. Local people found out that the black substance spotted at the root of the unlucky tree was different from …
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Designing computer games for young children is a daunting task for game producers, who, for a long time, have concentrated on more “hard core” game fans. This article chronicles the design process and research involved in creating Nintendo DS for preschool gamers. After speaking with our producers who have a keen interest in designing for …
For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting warmer. As the nearest country of South Polar Region, New Zealand has maintained an upward trend in its average temperature in the past few years. However, the temperature in New Zealand will go up 4oC in the next century while the polar region will go up …
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When rubber was first commercially produced in Europe during the nineteenth century, it rapidly became a very important commodity, particularly in the fields of transportation and electricity. However, during the twentieth century a number of new synthetic materials, called plastics, superseded natural rubber in all but a few applications. Rubber is a polymer—a compound containing …
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The ants are tiny and usually nest between rocks in the south coast of England. Transformed into research subjects at the University of Bristol, they raced along a tabletop foraging for food -and then, remarkably, returned to guide others. Time and again, followers trailed behind leaders, darting this way and that along the route, presumably …
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The field of weight loss is like the ancient fable about the blind men and the elephant. Each man investigates a different part of the animal and reports back, only to discover their findings are bafflingly incompatible. A The various findings by public-health experts, physicians, psychologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, and nutritionists are about as similar as …
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A The ants and their agriculture have been extensively studied over the years but the recent research has uncovered intriguing new findings about the fungus they cultivate, how they domesticated it and how they cultivate it and preserve it from pathogens. For example, the fungus farms, which the ants were thought to keep free of pathogens, …
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Jack Homer is an unlikely academic: his dyslexia is so bad that he has trouble reading a book. But he can read the imprint of life in sandstone or muddy shale across a distance of l00 years, and it is this gift that has made him curator of palaeontology at Montana State University’s Museum of …
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Everyone has creativity, some a lot more than others. The development of humans, and possibly the universe, depends on it. Yet creativity is an elusive creature. What do we mean by it? What is going on in our brains when ideas form? Does it feel the same for artists and scientists? We asked writers and …
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A One feels a certain sympathy for Captain James Cook on the day in 1778 that he “discovered” Hawaii. Then on his third expedition to the Pacific, the British navigator had explored scores of islands across the breadth of the sea, from lush New Zealand to the lonely wastes of Easter Island. This latest voyage had …
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