Terminated Dinosaur Era A. Day after day, we hear about how anthropogenic development is causing global warming. According to an increasingly vocal minority, however, we should be asking ourselves how much of this is media hype, and how much is based on real evidence. It seems – as so often is the ease – that …
Extinct: the Giant Deer Toothed cats, mastodons, giant sloths, woolly rhinos, and many other big, shaggy mammals are widely thought to have died out around the end of the last ice age, some 10,500 years ago. A The Irish elk is also known as the giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus). Analysis of ancient bones and teeth …
TV Addiction 2 A. Excessive cravings do not necessarily involve physical substances. Gambling can become compulsive; sex can become obsessive. One activity, however, stands out for its prominence and ubiquity—the world’s most popular pastime, television. Most people admit to having a love-bate relationship with it. They complain about the “boob tube” and “couch potatoes,” then …
The Dinosaurs Footprints and Extinction A EVERYBODY knows that the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid. Something big hit the earth 65 million years ago and, when the dust had fallen, so had the great reptiles. There is thus a nice if ironic, symmetry in the idea that a similar impact brought about the dinosaurs’ …
Intelligence and Giftedness A In 1904 the French minister of education, facing limited resources for schooling, sought a way to separate the unable from the merely lazy. Alfred Binet got the job of devising selection principles and his brilliant solution put a stamp on the study of intelligence and was the forerunner of intelligence tests …
Internal and External Marketing A Employees need to hear the same messages that you send out to the marketplace. At most companies, however, internal and external communications are often mismatched. This can be very confusing, and it threatens employees’ perceptions of the company’s integrity: They are told one thing by management but observe that a …
The value of research into mite harvestmen Few people have heard of the mite harvestman, and fewer still would recognize it at close range. The insect is a relative of the far more familiar daddy longlegs. But its legs are stubby rather than long, and its body is only as big as a sesame seed. …
Tattoo on Tikopia A. There are still debates about the origins of Polynesian culture, but one thing we can ensure is that Polynesia is not a single tribe but a complex one. Polynesians which include Marquesans, Samoans, Niueans, Tongans, Cook Islanders, Hawaiians, Tahitians, and Maori, are genetically linked to indigenous peoples of parts of Southeast Asia. …
Hunting Perfume in Madagascar A. Ever since the unguentari plied their trade in ancient Rome, perfumers have to keep abreast of changing fashions. These days they have several thousand ingredients to choose from when creating new scents, but there is always demand for new combinations. The bigger the “palette7 of smells, the better the perfumer’s chance of creating …
Paper or Computer? A. Computer technology was supposed to replace paper. But that hasn’t happened. Every country in the Western world uses more paper today, on a per- capita basis, than it did ten years ago. The consumption of uncoated free-sheet paper, for instance the most common kind of office paper — rose almost fifteen …
