Consider the cuckoo. When the female cuckoo is ready to lay, she seeks a bird of another species that is building a nest — a reed warbler, say. The cuckoo perches on a nearby branch and waits.
Articles from July 2020
Rufous Fantail feeding Brush Cuckoo • Photo by Damien.cook.frog (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Yanomami woman and child • Photo by Cmacauley (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The loving side of a violent people
The saga of the Yanomami continues. If the story were filmed by Hollywood, we would now be into the sequel to the sequel, “Yanomami III: The Romance.” But before we get to the love story, let’s back up to the original film.
Inverse image of the Hopewell hand • Field Museum of Natural History (CC BY-NC)
Through the ages, a sign of peace
Smart bombs. Night vision. Laser targeting. Pilots used to fly by the seat of their pants; now they fly by computer screens, and place bombs with pinpoint accuracy down air shafts and smoke stacks.
Photo by veeterzy on Unsplash
Pruning the tree of science
More than half of scientific research contributes nothing to the growth of knowledge.
Photo by Susanne Jutzeler from Pexels
Only 158 more days ’til summer
Among things that help keep alive thoughts of summer during cold, cloudy days of January are the Burpee seed catalog and Guy Ottewell’s Astronomical Calendar.
German postcard, ca. 1900 (Public Domain)
On the side of the angels
One of my earliest memories is of an angel.
A modern reconstruction of the extinct dodo • Photo by Michael Coghlan (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Science walks on the wild side
Svelte dodos, cloned magnolias, pet rocks of venerable age, and buckyballs. In this season of lists, here is one more. Ten of the funkiest, funniest, and just plain foolish science stories of 1990. If nothing else, they prove science has a human face.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Home is where the heart is
Remember this old riddle? A man leaves his house for a walk. He walks a mile due south, a mile due east, and a mile due north, and finds he is back at his house. What is the man’s name?
Photo by Rad Pozniakov on Unsplash
For all lovers of the night
The January 1991 issue of “Sky & Telescope” is on the newsstands and in the mailboxes. With this issue, the Cambridge-based astronomy magazine kicks off a celebration of its 50th year of publication.
Astronaut Mark C. Lee floating 130 miles above the Earth • NASA
Einstein just said ‘No’
Most of us have seen television images of astronauts floating in space.