The Ministry of Education and the John Tung Foundation recently sponsored a two-week camp for underweight and overweight children from grades three through six. Nutritionists taught the students about sugar and grease content in a variety of foods, a...
Heavy air on this Moment of Science. Here's an oxiny question: does air weigh anything? At first it might seem preplexing, on the one hand, air just seems floating, I mean, to say something is as light as air is to say its weighlessness, is isn't? Bu...
D: It's time once again to go to the Moment of Science's mailbag. Y: A listener writes in Dear AMOS, the Neanderthals were smart, tough, and well-adapted to the cold where they lived in regions north of Africa. So, what happened to them? D: That's on...
If you've been outside before a rainfall in the spring, you might have noticed a particularly fresh or sweet smell that seeps into the air a few minutes before the first drops begin to fall. If you're familiar with this smell, it's a great way to pre...
The super-duper 3-D big-screen Imaxed-out extravaganza that is Monsters vs. Aliens has bells and whistles, whiz and bang, sound and fury. It even has Reese Witherspoon. What it doesn't have is heart. . .or much of a story. Witherspoon voices a charac...
Native American stories and legends depict crows as witty and tricky. Modern behaviorists agree; crows are one of the more intelligent bird species. That intelligence allows them to be crafty survivors as well as, to put it bluntly, thieves. Maybe ou...
Don: Time to go again to the A Moment of Science mailbag. A listener writes: Dear Yal and Don, I know that it's important to have clean air, but why? Besides making the air smell better, what's the advantage of reducing air pollution? Yal: Interestin...
Fast Furious re-teams Vin Diesel and Paul Walker for the first time since 2001's The Fast and the Furious. A simple world where everything falls into an easy hierarchy is essential, so that the audience can concentrate on what's important: street rac...
More and more women have began smoking in the last few decades. One of the reasons is savvy marketing as Don explains to Yael in this Moment of Science. D: Yael, what's that in your hand? Y: Come on, Don. Haven't you seen a cigarette before? Every da...
Mike: Sorry, my little brother and sister are taking forever to get ready to go. They should be here soon. Amanda: Are they excited about seeing the pandas? Mike: What pandas? Didn't you hear the news a while ago that they're fake? They're really bro...
Is there any sound more annoying than the whine of a [dict]mosquito[/dict]? Yes, mosquitoes are pests through and through. But there's more to their irritating whine than meets the ear. For mosquitoes, that's the sound of love. It's well known by sci...
Yal: What are you doing with that shovel, Don? Don: I'm digging a hole for a tornado shelter to get ready for next winter, Yal. Y: A tornado shelter for winter? D: Yep. We're going to have lots of tornadoes in the midwest this year. Y: How could you...
The survival strategies of some species can seem counter-intuitive to us until we examine them in detail. Let's take the example of bees, which die after stinging once, because the stinger tears out their insides. How can this self-destructive trait...
Don: Time to go again to the A Moment of Science mailbag. Yal: A listener writes: Dear A Moment of Science, Scientists know that one day we'll run out of oil and other natural sources of energy. Beyond solar power and wind power and ethanol, what are...
Last time we were thinking about why some birds hop and other birds walk. We decided that you can't make any blanket statements about this, because there will always be exceptions. But in general it's true that larger birds are more likely to walk an...
