How Madagascar’s bats are helping to save the rainforest There are few places in the world where relations between agriculture and conservation are more strained. Madagascar’s forests are being converted to agricultural land at a rate of one percent every year. Much of this destruction is fuelled by the cultivation of the country’s main staple … Read more
Katharine L. Shester reviews a book by Jason Barr about the development of New York City In Building the Skyline, Jason Barr takes the reader through a detailed history of New York City. The book combines geology, history, economics, and a lot of data to explain why business clusters developed where they did and how … Read more
A. Palm oil is an edible oil derived from the fruit of the African oil palm tree, and is currently the most consumed vegetable oil in the world. It’s almost certainly in the soap we wash with in the morning, the sandwich we have for lunch, and the biscuits we snack on during the day. … Read more
The extinct thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, was a marsupial that bore a superficial resemblance to a dog. Its most distinguishing feature was the 13—19 dark brown stripes over its back, beginning at the rear of the body and extending onto the tail. The thylacine’s average nose-to-tail length for adult males was 162.6 … Read more
Two scientists consider the origins of discoveries and other innovative behavior Scientific discovery is popularly believed to result from the sheer genius of such intellectual stars as naturalist Charles Darwin and theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. Our view of such unique contributions to science often disregards the person’s prior experience and the efforts of their lesser-known … Read more
A It took at least 3,000 years for humans to learn how to domesticate the wild tomato and cultivate it for food. Now two separate teams in Brazil and China have done it all over again in less than three years. And they have done it better in some ways, as the re-domesticated tomatoes are … Read more
In late 1946 or early 1947, three Bedouin teenagers were tending their goats and sheep near the ancient settlement of Qumran, located on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in what is now known as the West Bank. One of these young shepherds tossed a rock into an opening on the side of a … Read more
Anna Keay reviews Charles Spencer’s book about the hunt for King Charles II during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century Charles Spencer’s latest book, To Catch a King, tells us the story of the hunt for King Charles II in the six weeks after his resounding defeat at the Battle of Worcester in … Read more
A. Stadiums are among the oldest forms of urban architecture: vast stadiums where the public could watch sporting events were at the center of western city life as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman Empires, well before the construction of the great medieval cathedrals and the grand 19th- and 20th-century railway stations which … Read more
In the first half of the 1800s, London’s population grew at an astonishing rate, and the central area became increasingly congested. In addition, the expansion of the overground railway network resulted in more and more passengers arriving in the capital. However, in 1846, a Royal Commission decided that the railways should not be allowed to … Read more
