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When Bird and Whale Shook the Earth
By JAMES GORMAN, New York Times, August 2, 2005
You don't need a seismograph to know when the earth quakes.
That's not exactly the way the song goes, but it's not a bad way to summarize the conclusion of an article this spring in Seismological Research Letters.
The article, by scientists, American Indians and others, found references in art and stories of natives of the Pacific Northwest to the Cascadia earthquake of 1700.
( Read More )
A New Kind of Birdsong: Music on the Wing in the Forests of Ecuador
By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times, August 2, 2005
Richard Prum, a Yale ornithologist, was hiking through an Ecuadorean forest 18 years ago when he had one of the strangest experiences an ornithologist can have. He watched a bird sing with its wings.
Dr. Prum was observing a male club-winged manakin. The tiny red-headed bird was hopping acrobatically from branch to branch in order to attract female manakins. And from time to time, the male would wave its wings over its back. Each time the manakin produced a loud, clear tone that sounded as if it came from a violin.
"I was just utterly stunned," Dr. Prum said. "There's literally no bird in the world that does anything that prepares you for it. It's totally unique."
Ever since, Dr. Prum has wondered how the club-winged manakin managed this feat. Now he and a former student, Kimberly Bostwick of Cornell University, believe they have solved the mystery.
The club-winged manakin is the only bird known to sing with its feathers, pictured at top. The bird uses a club-shaped feather as a pick to rake the ridges of another feather. It does this by raising its wings over its back, and shaking them back and forth more than 100 times a second so that one feather rubs the other like a spoon moving across a washboard.
( Read More )
The Claim: Sharks Are Attracted to Bright Colors and Sometimes Mistake Divers for Seals
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR, The New York Times, August 2, 2005
THE FACTS You would never know it from the evening news, but the last thing you should worry about at the beach this summer is a shark attack. The odds of drowning are far greater. Yet despite the attention they receive, shark attacks and their causes are widely misunderstood, experts say.
The most popular myth? That sharks are attracted to swimmers who wear bright colors. ( Read More )
Dentists Prepare to Be on Front Line of Civil Defense
By RICHARD MORGAN, The New York Times, August 2, 2005
Past the five-foot-tall tanks of nitrogen gas, through a narrow, snaking hallway, behind double doors, just past the safety shower, they convene on the 10th floor of a building in Manhattan.
They await an outbreak of smallpox or botulism, or nerve gas in the subway, perhaps a dirty bomb going off in Midtown. They are a creative bunch: well-educated, high-ranking, American. They are also dentists.
Their leader, the former military contract agent Dianne Rekow, has a horde of degrees in disciplines including biomedical engineering, physics and mechanical engineering. She has an M.B.A. and, of course, a doctorate in dental science. Hailing from Minnesota by way of Texas, she stands 6 foot 1, and looms over her comrades in her modest New York University office.
Dr. Rekow's plan is ambitious, national in scope and revolutionary in concept: she wants to draw dentists into the squadron of so-called "first responders" - the police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians dispatched for disaster relief and crisis management.
Dentists, she argues, are a rich but overlooked source of help in what is euphemistically called a surge environment, in layman's terms, the moment when all hell breaks loose.
( Read More )
By JAMES GORMAN, New York Times, August 2, 2005
You don't need a seismograph to know when the earth quakes.
That's not exactly the way the song goes, but it's not a bad way to summarize the conclusion of an article this spring in Seismological Research Letters.
The article, by scientists, American Indians and others, found references in art and stories of natives of the Pacific Northwest to the Cascadia earthquake of 1700.
( Read More )
A New Kind of Birdsong: Music on the Wing in the Forests of Ecuador
By CARL ZIMMER, The New York Times, August 2, 2005
Richard Prum, a Yale ornithologist, was hiking through an Ecuadorean forest 18 years ago when he had one of the strangest experiences an ornithologist can have. He watched a bird sing with its wings.
Dr. Prum was observing a male club-winged manakin. The tiny red-headed bird was hopping acrobatically from branch to branch in order to attract female manakins. And from time to time, the male would wave its wings over its back. Each time the manakin produced a loud, clear tone that sounded as if it came from a violin.
"I was just utterly stunned," Dr. Prum said. "There's literally no bird in the world that does anything that prepares you for it. It's totally unique."
Ever since, Dr. Prum has wondered how the club-winged manakin managed this feat. Now he and a former student, Kimberly Bostwick of Cornell University, believe they have solved the mystery.
The club-winged manakin is the only bird known to sing with its feathers, pictured at top. The bird uses a club-shaped feather as a pick to rake the ridges of another feather. It does this by raising its wings over its back, and shaking them back and forth more than 100 times a second so that one feather rubs the other like a spoon moving across a washboard.
( Read More )
The Claim: Sharks Are Attracted to Bright Colors and Sometimes Mistake Divers for Seals
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR, The New York Times, August 2, 2005
THE FACTS You would never know it from the evening news, but the last thing you should worry about at the beach this summer is a shark attack. The odds of drowning are far greater. Yet despite the attention they receive, shark attacks and their causes are widely misunderstood, experts say.
The most popular myth? That sharks are attracted to swimmers who wear bright colors. ( Read More )
Dentists Prepare to Be on Front Line of Civil Defense
By RICHARD MORGAN, The New York Times, August 2, 2005
Past the five-foot-tall tanks of nitrogen gas, through a narrow, snaking hallway, behind double doors, just past the safety shower, they convene on the 10th floor of a building in Manhattan.
They await an outbreak of smallpox or botulism, or nerve gas in the subway, perhaps a dirty bomb going off in Midtown. They are a creative bunch: well-educated, high-ranking, American. They are also dentists.
Their leader, the former military contract agent Dianne Rekow, has a horde of degrees in disciplines including biomedical engineering, physics and mechanical engineering. She has an M.B.A. and, of course, a doctorate in dental science. Hailing from Minnesota by way of Texas, she stands 6 foot 1, and looms over her comrades in her modest New York University office.
Dr. Rekow's plan is ambitious, national in scope and revolutionary in concept: she wants to draw dentists into the squadron of so-called "first responders" - the police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians dispatched for disaster relief and crisis management.
Dentists, she argues, are a rich but overlooked source of help in what is euphemistically called a surge environment, in layman's terms, the moment when all hell breaks loose.
( Read More )
