Category Archives: boston globe

Art historians know that in 1889 Vincent van Gogh painted one of his masterpieces, “Moonrise,” but they were never able to pinpoint the exact moment portrayed in the painting. (Never let it be said that art historians are less obsessed … Continue reading →

Male dragonflies appear to be extraordinarily wily when in pursuit of rivals in their territories: they can fly in such a way that they appear completely motionless to their foes, a technique known as motion camouflage. Akiko Mizutani of Australian … Continue reading →

You don’t usually want to get too close to a colony of seabirds, unless you really enjoy the smell of bird excrement. But perhaps smelling a crested auklet colony wouldn’t be so bad — the highly social Alaskan seabirds (right) … Continue reading →

Only relatively recently have scientists discovered the secret behind the gecko’s extraordinary ability to hang from a glass ceiling by a single toe: its feet are covered by millions of tiny hairs, each of which act together to provide the … Continue reading →

Unexpectedly, one of the windiest planets in our solar system has become dramatically less windy, but you’ll still need your windbreaker. Gusts near Saturn’s equator are currently blowing at speeds just over 600 miles per hour, but 20 years ago … Continue reading →

Monarch butterflies are famous for their thousands-mile-long fall migration from eastern North America to central Mexico. But how do they know how to get there? Scientists knew that the butterflies used the sun to navigate, but they weren’t sure how … Continue reading →

Those wasted hours, days, weeks playing Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto may not be wasted after all. Sure, video games may make you more sedentary and perhaps even more violent, but at least they’ve improved your visual skills. C. … Continue reading →

Forget outer space: Let’s journey to the center of the Earth, where “fascinating scientific issues are waiting to be investigated,” says Cal Tech geophysicist David Stevenson. In the May 15 Nature, he proposes a radical scheme to blast a crack … Continue reading →

Neptune may have seasons, say astronomers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, after studying images of the icy, far-off planet taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The images — taken over a six-year period … Continue reading →

When times are tough, the strongest women bear more sons, reported British researchers in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society last week. University of London evolutionary anthropologists Mhairi Gibson and Ruth Mace studied mothers in a rural Ethiopian community … Continue reading →