The first fossil ant from Africa, found in amber dating back 95 million years, challenges a previously held theory that ants originated in North America or East Asia. The finding is part of a larger study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identifying 28 fossilized insects, one spider and one mite, [...]
Archive for April, 2010
African Fossil Changes Ideas of Ant Origins
Posted in Natural sciences on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
Caterpillars That Thrive in Water and on Land
Posted in Biological sciences on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
Plenty of animals can live equally well in air or water. They don’t call frogs amphibians for nothing, after all. But insects — whoever heard of an amphibious insect? Daniel Rubinoff, a biologist at the University of Hawaii, has. In a paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he and a post-doctoral [...]
For Nuclear Reactors, Metals That Heal Themselves
Posted in Physical sciences on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
A nuclear reactor is a tough place for metals. All those neutrons bouncing around wreak havoc with the crystalline structure of steel, tungsten and other metals used in fuel rods and other parts. Over time, the metals can swell and become brittle. (They become radioactive, too, but that’s another story.) Now researchers at Los Alamos [...]
The Claim: For Better Muscle Tone, Go Lighter and Repeat
Posted in Health on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
Lifting heavy weights makes you big and bulky — or at least that’s the conventional wisdom. It’s the reason many women (and some men) who want slim and “toned” physiques opt for lighter weights, lifted more times. But the notion is not supported by science. Producing bulky muscles requires not just heavy weights but heavy [...]
Scientists Discover Heavy New Element
Posted in Physical sciences on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
A team of Russian and American scientists has discovered a new element that has long stood as a missing link among the heaviest bits of atomic matter ever produced. The element, still nameless, appears to point the way toward a brew of still more massive elements with chemical properties no one can predict. The team [...]
Tree-mendous
Posted in Living on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
The prickly pear cactus in the Galápagos Islands. The garden outside my window is home to an enormous and beautiful tree. I gave it a hug the other day, but the trunk is so huge I could barely get my arms round a quarter of its girth. For now, the branches are bare of leaves, [...]
Brit is it
Posted in The Word, tagged April 11 2010 on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
Blimey, this is supposed to be America! So you despise the phrase went missing? You think spot on is pretentious, at the end of the day is meaningless filler, and all such British vocabulary invaders should be deep-sixed in Boston Harbor? Well, take heart: We are giving as good as we get these days, annoying [...]
Natural Disasters and the Wrath of God
Posted in Religion on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
When the Rev. Pat Robertson suggested that the January earthquake in Haiti was God’s punishment for a 200-year-old secret pact with the devil, he faced outrage and scorn, including some from fellow religious leaders. But for all its absurdity (was the 1751 Haiti earthquake a divine warning shot over the bow?), Mr. Robertson’s claim isn’t [...]
Too tart a comment?
Posted in Weird cases on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
What began as a snide comment about the way sliced apples were arranged on the top of a tart in a French bakery triggered a two-year legal battle that ended recently in the criminal courts. Apple pie is often cited as an example of something self-evidently good. In France, however, la tarte aux pommes, might [...]
Spain’s most famous magistrate faces trial—and possibly the end of his investigative career Franco’s last victim? GENERALISIMO Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain for 36 years, may be laughing in his grave. An attempt by Baltasar Garzón, a magistrate renowned for his crusades against human-rights abusers, to investigate atrocities committed by Franco and his henchmen is [...]
An Elite Team of Sleuths, Saving Lives in Obscurity
Posted in Health on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
Millions of people know what C.D.C. and F.D.A. stand for. Far fewer recognize E.I.S., though they may owe their lives to it. The E.I.S. is the Epidemic Intelligence Service, an arm of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its cadre of 160 elite medical detectives — many of them young doctors at the [...]
After the Crash, a Crashing Bore
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on April 11, 2010 | Comments Off
The men behind the bailout take refuge in impenetrable jargon. Like all Americans, I continue to seek to understand exactly what moods, facts, assumptions, dynamics, agendas and structures underlay and made possible the crash and the Great Recession. We do this so that we will be able to bring our gained wisdom into the future [...]
Tone down the hatefulness in politics
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on April 10, 2010 | Comments Off
What is so wrong about Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell declaring April to be Confederate History Month? Can’t we respect Robert E. Lee’s high-minded sense of honor? The average Confederate soldier’s outnumbered stubbornness? Americans can appreciate these things, and do. But when a public official celebrates Confederate history without mentioning slavery, there is a problem. The [...]
Nuclear posturing, Obama-style
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics on April 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Nuclear doctrine consists of thinking the unthinkable. It involves making threats and promising retaliation that is cruel and destructive beyond imagining. But it has its purpose: to prevent war in the first place. During the Cold War, we let the Russians know that if they dared use their huge conventional military advantage and invaded Western [...]
‘Hard to Understand, but Easy to Love’
Posted in Poetry on April 10, 2010 | Comments Off
Robert Frost’s ‘Directive’ sounds ornery and ironic, heartbroken and lyrical, all at once Robert Frost’s tour de force “Directive” has disgruntled and captivated readers for more than half a century. Like many of his best poems, it describes a walk in an unnamed wood and, in this case, to an ancient brook, which he calls [...]
Droning on
Posted in Conflicts and wars on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
How to build ethical understanding into pilotless war planes As ye sow… WHAT the helicopter was to the Vietnam war, the drone is becoming to the Afghan conflict: both a crucial weapon in the American armoury and a symbol of technological might pitted against stubborn resistance. Pilotless aircraft such as the Predator and the Reaper, [...]
The Karzai Fiasco
Posted in Editorials and opinion, tagged Afghanistan on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Echoes of Vietnam in a spat that only helps the Taliban. President Obama isn’t faring too well at converting enemies to friends, but he does seem to have a talent for turning friends into enemies. The latest spectacle is the all-too-public and counterproductive war of words between the White House and our putative ally, Afghan [...]
Dreams of Disarmament
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
As rogues seek a bomb, the U.S. and Russia renew a Cold War treaty. If diplomatic activity equalled disarmament results, President Obama would soon be delivering a nuclear-free world. On Tuesday, his Administration released its Nuclear Posture Review, setting new limits on the potential U.S. use of nuclear weapons. Today, the President is in Prague [...]
Obama Has Overpromised and Underdelivered
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
We have heard for months that the Democrats’ election prospects would brighten once they pivot from health care to the economy. But that seems increasingly unlikely. The reason is simple: President Barack Obama overpromised on his stimulus package and then grossly underdelivered. That has caused public confidence in his ability to handle the economy to [...]
On sexual abuse scandal, the pope gets a bad rap
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Religion on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
By any human standard, Pope Benedict XVI and the American Catholic Church are getting a bad rap in the current outbreak of outrage over clerical sexual abuse. Far from being indifferent or complicit, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was among the first in Rome to take the scandal seriously. During much of his service as head of [...]
Obama weighs new peace plan for the Middle East
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Despite recent turbulence in U.S. relations with Israel, President Obama is “seriously considering” proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian conflict, according to two top administration officials. “Everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal,” said one of the senior officials, citing the agreement that was nearly reached at Camp David in [...]
Why Tiger Matters
Posted in Other on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Tiger Woods practicing for the Masters Tournament Tuesday. Every week I learn something from writing this column. Last week’s column taught me that if you want to bask in the adulation of your readers, you should avoid sounding like you disapprove of Tiger Woods’s off-the-course behavior. One commenter filed me under “nannies, finger-pointers and scolds.” [...]
How to Save Afghanistan From Karzai
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged Afghanistan on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
IN February, the Taliban sanctuary of Marja in southern Afghanistan was attacked in the largest operation of the war. Last week, President Obama flew to Afghanistan and declared, “Our troops have pushed the Taliban out of their stronghold in Marja …. The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something.” But [...]
In Sleepless Nights, a Hope for Treating Depression
Posted in Living on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
Is there anything good about insomnia? Could there possibly be any upside to a long, torturous sleepless night? To answer the question, let’s look at another condition entirely. Postpartum depression affects between 5 percent and 25 percent of new mothers. Symptoms — including sadness, fatigue, appetite changes, crying, anxiety and irritability — usually occur in [...]
A Confederacy of Dunces
Posted in Editorials and opinion, History, Politics on April 8, 2010 | Comments Off
April is the cruelest month. Or, if you live in Virginia, Confederate History Month. The state is buzzing over Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proclamation urging citizens to spend the month recalling Virginia’s days as a member of the Confederate States of America. Although since McDonnell had previously turned April over to child abuse prevention, organ donation [...]
The pope’s reluctance to take a firm stance on sexual abuse by priests is expanding into a crisis for the Catholic Church and fueling outrage over his papacy. Some Catholics are now even calling on Benedict, who has committed a series of gaffes since becoming pope in 2005, to resign. Pope Benedict XVI celebrates mass [...]
Real (and Fake) Hoofbeats of the Pony Express
Posted in Other on April 6, 2010 | Comments Off
A business that lasted 18 months in real life has survived 150 years in myth. Americans love a winner and they remember what they want to remember, and so let us now remember the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Co.—known from the day it began 150 years ago on April 3, 1860, as [...]
Hicks KO’d In Sticks
Posted in Other on April 6, 2010 | Comments Off
How a small town’s publicity stunt— getting Jack Dempsey to defend his title there—ended up in red ink and ridicule. Under a baking Big Sky sun on the high plains of northern Montana, heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey defended his crown on July 4, 1923, against a game but overmatched challenger, Tommy Gibbons. The real [...]
What’s the Next ‘Global Warming’?
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on April 6, 2010 | Comments Off
Herewith I propose a contest to invent the next panic. So global warming is dead, nailed into its coffin one devastating disclosure, defection and re-evaluation at a time. Which means that pretty soon we’re going to need another apocalyptic scare to take its place. As recently as October, the Guardian reported that scientists at Cambridge [...]
Our Fading National Pastime
Posted in Arts and Entertainment on April 6, 2010 | Comments Off
Fidel Castro is right. Japan and Korea now field better baseball teams than America does. The start of a new baseball season always comes with odes to the national pastime. But is it fair to say that baseball still deserves that description? Measured by popularity, participation or skill versus other nations, baseball is arguably an [...]
