On the morning of August 27, 1939, a small aircraft was towed onto the runway at Marienehe airfield in Mecklenberg, northern Germany. To the handful of observers gathered at the edge of the field, the craft must have looked like something out of science fiction, with its gleaming barrel-shaped fuselage, gaping nose intake, and stubby… Read More »
Storms are not only dangerous, but they can be very unpredictable. The atmospheric disturbance, often accompanied by snow, rain, and heavy winds, occurs in nearly all parts of the world. When a storm is accompanied by thunder, it is known as a thunderstorm. That said, do you know why various storms are given human names?…… Read More »
On March 31, 1851, a crowd of curious Parisians gathered at the Pantheon to witness a historic scientific demonstration. In the centre of the building, directly beneath its towering dome, they found a deceptively simple piece of equipment: a 28-kilogram brass-coated lead sphere, suspended from the building’s dome by a 67-metre-long wire. Beneath this was… Read More »
At around 7 P.M. on May 2, 1878, the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota was rocked by a massive explosion. In the blink of an eye, the Washburn A flour mill – the largest in the world – disappeared, and a giant column of dust, smoke and debris shot into the sky. The blast was felt… Read More »
Rarely do human beings think about worms. Yes, they may spot one in their garden, but a minute later, their minds will have probably moved on to other things. However, worms play a crucial role in our ecosystem. According to Charles Darwin, worms are the most important creatures on earth. Whether he was right or…… Read More »
If your parents ever took you to a science museum or planetarium as a child, you likely spent much of your visit in the gift shop, begging them to buy you one of the hundreds of shiny – and purportedly “educational” – items on offer. And most irresistible of all was undoubtedly “astronaut food”: shiny… Read More »
At 2:46 PM on March 11, 2011, at a spot 60 kilometres off the coast of Japan, the Pacific tectonic plate suddenly slipped and plunged under the Eurasian plate. The resulting Tohoku earthquake, lasting six minutes and measuring 9.0 on the Moment Magnitude Scale, was the most powerful in Japanese history and the fourth largest… Read More »
