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350 articles · page 13 of 15
The Tasmanian Tiger
A. The Tasmanian tiger, or thylocine, was a carnivorous marsupial (a meat-eating mammal which carries its young in a pouch). It was given the name 'tiger' because it had …
The Tuatara of New Zealand
The Tuatara of New Zealand A living relic of a vanished age — why New Zealand's most ancient reptile matters to science he tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus, is found nowhere …
The Tuatara of New Zealand
Tuatara are lizard-like reptiles, found only in New Zealand. They are representative of ancient life forms. Tuatara are the only living representatives of an ancient line…
The Voynich Manuscript
A. The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the most valuable books in the world: first folios of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles and manus…
The Voynich Manuscript
A mysterious manuscript that has puzzled scholars and codebreakers for centuries The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the most valuab…
The Voynich Manuscript
The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the most valuable books in the world: first folios of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles and manuscri…
The Wonder Plant
Bamboo is used for a wide range of purposes, but now it seems it may be under threat A. Every year, during the rainy season, the mountain gorillas of central Africa migra…
The World's First Cities
A. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia – which now forms part of eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and Iraq – lived for thousands of years on individual farms and in small, i…
The communication of science
A. Science plays an increasingly significant role in people's lives, making the communication by journalists in the popular media of scientific developments more importan…
The dingo debate
Graziers see them as pests, and poisoning is common, but some biologists think Australia's dingoes are the best weapon in a war against imported cats and foxes. A. A plan…
The dingo debate
A. A plane flies a slow pattern over Carlton Hill station, a 3,600 square kilometre ranch in the Kimberley region in northwest Australia. As the plane circles, those aboa…
The dingo debate
A A plane flies a slow pattern over Carlton Hill station, a 3,600 square kilometre ranch in the Kimberley region in northwest Australia. As the plane circles, those aboar…
The fashion industry
A. The fashion industry is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise devoted to the business of making and selling clothes. It encompasses all types of garments, from desig…
The fluoridation controversy
A. Fluoridation is the addition of fluorine to public water supplies with the aim of reducing tooth decay. The fluorine, when mixed with water, becomes fluoride and the d…
The history of the Pencil
A. The history of the pencil started with a violent thunderstorm. When some particularly ferocious weather struck the Lake District in North West England in the sixteenth…
The horseshoe crab
A. One of the world's oldest animal species, the horseshoe crab, is found along the east coast of the United States and Mexico. Fossil records indicate this creature date…
The importance of law
A. The law influences all of us virtually all the time. It governs almost all aspects of our behavior, and even what happens to us when we are no longer alive. It affects…
The last man who knew everything
A. Thomas Young (1773–1829) contributed 63 articles to the great British encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, including 46 biographical entries (mostly on scientists …
The mystery of Easter Island
A. The giant stone statues of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean have perplexed archaeologists ever since European explorers first witnessed them three centuries ago. Jac…
The pesticide-free village
Around 20 years ago, a handful of families migrated from the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, south-east India, into Punukula, a community of around 900 people farming …
The plan to bring an asteroid to Earth
Moving in orbit around our sun are millions of rocks known as asteroids. Now scientists have plans to capture one. 14 A Send a robot into space, catch an asteroid and bri…
The power of persuasion
A. Some scientists peer at things through high-powered telescopes, others tempt rats through mazes, or mix bubbling fluids in glass beakers. Then there is Robert Cialdini…
The role of accidents in business
In 1894 Dr John Kellogg and his brother Will were supervising a hospital and health spa in Michigan. The patients were on a restricted diet. One day, the brothers left co…
The significant role of mother tongue language in education
One consequence of population mobility is an increasing diversity within schools. To illustrate, in the city of Toronto in Canada, 58% of kindergarten pupils come from ho…