A The old saw that “the devil is in the details” characterizes the kind of needling obstacles that prevent an innovative concept from becoming a working technology. It also often describes the type of problems that must be overcome to shave cost from the resulting… Read More »Sunny Days for Silicon
A Although we lack accurate statistics about child mortality in the pre-industrial period, we do have evidence that in the 1660s, the mortality rate for children who died within 14 days of birth was as much as 30 per cent. Nearly all families suffered some… Read More »Education Philosophy
A No one doubts that intelligence develops as children grow older. Yet the concept of intelligence has proved both quite difficult to define in unambiguous terms and unexpectedly controversial in some respects. Although, at one level, there seem to be almost as many definitions of… Read More »The beginning of intelligence
A Although willpower does not shape our decisions, it determines whether and how long we can follow through on them. It almost single-handedly determines life outcomes. Interestingly, research suggests the general population is indeed aware of how essential willpower is to their wellbeing; survey… Read More »Willpower
Burying greenhouse gases to slow global warmingA. One way to slow global warming is to take the greenhouse gases that cause it and bury them. That is the idea behind projects now under way to capture emissions from power plants and factories and force… Read More »Answers Underground
American companies fear that innovation is the secret of success-and that they cannot innovate In the small Umagic office in midtown Manhattan, a team of 30 computer programmers are working on setting up websites that will allow subscribers to feed in details about themselves and… Read More »Fear of the unknown
A Sometime in the early Cretaceous period of the Earth’s history, hunting wasps of a certain type became bees by adopting a vegetarian diet: they began to rely more and more on the pollen of plants as a source of protein for themselves and their… Read More »The ecological importance of bees
Peter Rrigg discovers how talc from Luzenac’s Trimouns in France find its way into food and agricultural products—from chewing gum to olive oil. High in the French Pyrenees, some 1,700m above sea level, lies Trimouns, a huge deposit of hydrated magnesium silicate – talc to… Read More »Talc Powder
However much we may abhor it, deception comes naturally to all living things. Birds do it by feigning injury to lead hungry predators away from nesting young. Spider crabs do it by disguise: adorning themselves with strips of kelp and other debris, they pretend to… Read More »How to spot a liar
The Maori are the indigenous people of the islands of New Zealand. Their traditional medicine, which is believed to date back as far as the 13th century, was a system of healing that was passed down through the generations orally. It comprised diverse practices and… Read More »Traditional Maori medicines
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