Thursday, 9 February, 2012

How do dragonflies fly? How do bats catch insects hidden behind leaves? How do you make a temperature of 2 billion degrees? Why would anyone care?

Need a gift for your favorite scientist? How about a solar backpack, a super-hefty magnet, or a digital camera that takes 40 million pix a second?

The solar clock doesn’t quite line up with the atomic clock. We use leap seconds to make them match. Should we dump the leap second?

Don’t leave any goodies behind at the crime scene. Collect the bugs. Collect the maggots, and don’t forget to collect the ransom note. Forensic science — it’s better than you think!

Neutrinos are everywhere, but catching these tiny particles is one of the toughest tasks in physics. A giant neutrino experiment is starting up in Illinois. Want to go visit?

Animals watch others and change their behavior to match.

Bigfoot film was a fraud, a hoax, says man who played bigfoot in 1967 film. Why do so many people believe in cryptozoology?

This Why File surveys the latest in forensic anthropology, with a visit to the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, AKA The Body Farm.

One-quarter of cats and dogs are fat, says National Research Council. Does this matter?

Cannibalism reconsidered. Is devouring the relatives a humane way to respond to emotions about death? Do cannibals still roam the Guyana highlands?