A Creatures across the animal kingdom have a preference for one foot, eye or even antenna. The cause of this trait, called lateralisation, is fairly simple: one side of the brain, which generally controls the opposite side of the body, is more dominant than the other when processing certain tasks. This does, on some occasions, let …
A This chapter examines the ‘Golden Age’ of the Hollywood film studio system and explores how a particular kind of filmmaking developed during this period in US film history. It also focuses on the two key elements which influenced the emergence of the classic Hollywood studio system: the advent of sound and the business ideal of …
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The Phoenicians inhabited the region of modern Lebanon and Syria from about 3000 BC. They became the greatest traders of the pre-classical world, and were the first people to establish a large colonial network. Both of these activities were based on seafaring, an ability the Phoenicians developed from the example of their maritime predecessors, the …
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A For many hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, online networking has become enmeshed in our daily lives. However, it is a decades-old insight from a study of traditional social networks that best illuminates one of the most important aspects of today’s online networking. In 1973 sociologist Mark Granovetter showed how the loose acquaintances, or ‘weak …
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Evolutionist Charles Darwin first marvelled at flesh-eating plants in the mid-19th century. Today, biologists, using 21st-century tools to study cells and DNA, are beginning to understand how these plants hunt, eat and digest – and how such bizarre adaptations arose in the first place. A The leaves of the Venus flytrap plant are covered in hairs. …
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A We have all heard tales of lone, heroic explorers, but what about the local individuals who guided and protected European explorers in many different parts of the globe? Or the go-betweens – including interpreters and traders – who translated the needs and demands of explorers into a language that locals could understand? Such questions have …
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For a fascinating tale about creativity, look at a cleaning product called the Swiffer and how it came about, urges writer Jonah Lehrer. In the story of the Swiffer, he argues, we have the key elements in producing breakthrough ideas: frustration, moments of insight and sheer hard work. The story starts with a multinational company …
A The shepherds of the North Caucasus region of Europe were only trying to transport milk the best way they knew how – in leather pouches strapped to the side of donkeys – when they made a significant discovery. A fermentation process would sometimes inadvertently occur en route, and when the pouches were opened up on …
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A At Kirkkojarvi Comprehensive School in Espoo, a suburb west of Helsinki, Kari Louhivuori, the school’s principal, decided to try something extreme by Finnish standards. One of his sixth-grade students, a recent immigrant, was falling behind, resisting his teacher’s best efforts. So he decided to hold the boy back a year. Standards in the country have …
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A premier, world-class laboratory in low Earth orbit. That was how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration agency (NASA) sold the International Space Station (ISS) to the US Congress in 2001.Today no one can doubt the agency’s technological ambition. The most complex engineering project ever attempted has created an enormous set of interlinked modules that …
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