On a fall day in 1991, two Germans hiking in the Alps near the Italian- Austrian border stumbled across what they initially believed to be a modern corpse frozen in the ice. Once the body was...
The science of geyser eruptions was worked out by none other than Robert Bunsen-聽of burner fame. Actually Bunsen did not invent the burner but did improve upon existing equipment by showing that...
Influenza is a nasty illness. It isn鈥檛 just a bad cold. This viral infection kills up to half a million people in the world every year. And that鈥檚 in a good year. In a bad year, like 1968, the Hong...
Because baby houseflies don鈥檛 exist. A little backgrounder on the flies鈥 reproductive cycle can clear up this seeming conundrum. Within a week of mating, a doggie-style activity lasting from a few...
Doyle had become interested in spiritualism in the late 1800s and joined the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR). In 1894 he was one of the members of a committee sent to investigate a...
Woodrow Wilson鈥檚 secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, was ridiculed in 1913 for serving Welch鈥檚 grape juice instead of wine at a dinner honoring the British ambassador. This proved to be...
Back in the 1930s a flower merchant with a greenhouse full of carnations got worried when the weather forecast called for extremely cold temperatures. So he placed a kerosene burner in the...
At least in a manner of speaking.聽When Hernan Cortez came to America in 1518 he was intrigued by the beautifully coloured Aztec fabrics, particularly the stunning reds.聽He asked the natives about...