Moles happy as homes go underground A The first anybody knew about Dutchman Frank Siegmunds and his family was when workmen tramping through a field found a narrow steel chimney protruding through the grass. Closer inspection revealed a chink of sky-light window among the thistles, and when amazed investigators moved down the side of the …
Communicating Styles and Conflict Knowing your communication style and having a mix of styles on your team can provide a positive force for resolving conflict. A As far back as Hippocrates’ time (460-370B.C.), people have tried to understand other people by characterizing them according to personality type or temperament.Hippocrates believed there were four different body fluids …
What Is a Port City? The port city provides a fascinating and rich understanding of the movement of people and qoods around the world. We understand a port as a centre of land-sea exchange, and as a major source of livelihood and a major force for cultural mixing. But do ports all produce a range …
How much higher? How much faster? — Limits to human sporting performance are not yet in sight — Since the early years of the twentieth century, when the International Athletic Federation began keeping records, there has been a steady improvement in how fast athletes run, how high they jump and how far they are bale …
There has always been a sense in which America and Europe owned film There has always been a sense in which America and Europe owned film. They invented it at the end of the nineteenth century in unfashionable places like New Jersey, Leeds and the suburbs of Lyons. At first, they saw their clumsy new …
The scientific method A ‘Hypotheses,’ said Medawar in 1964, ‘are imaginative and inspirational in character’; they are ‘adventures of the mind’. He was arguing in favour of the position taken by Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1972, 3rd edition) that the nature of scientific method is hypothetico-deductive and not, as is generally …
Running on empty A revolutionary new theory in sports physiology. A For almost a century, scientists have presumed, not unreasonably, that fatigue – or exhaustion in athletes originates in the muscles. Precise explanations have varied but all have been based on the ‘limitations theory’. In other words, muscles tire because they hit a physical limit: they …
IT’S ECO-LOGICAL Planning an eco-friendly holiday can be a minefield for the well- meaning traveller, says Steve Watkins. But help is now at hand. If there were awards for tourism phrases that have been hijacked, diluted and misused then ‘ecotourism’ would earn top prize. The term first surfaced in the early 1980s reflecting a surge …
Why don’t babies talk like adults? Kids go from ‘goo-goo’ to talkative one step at a time A recent e-trade advertisement shows a baby speaking directly to the camera: ‘Look at this,’ he says, I’m a free man. I go anywhere I want now.’ He describes his stock-buying activities, and then his phone rings. This …
Humpback whale breaks migration record A whale surprises researchers with her journey. A lone humpback whale travelled more than 9,800 kilometres from breeding areas in Brazil to those in Madagascar, setting a record for the longest mammal migration ever documented. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are known to have some of the longest migration distances of all mammals, …
