Osedax is a genus of polychaete—sea worm—that feeds on the bones of whale carcasses. Possessing neither stomachs nor mouths, members of the Osedax genus rely on symbiotic species of bacteria to digest whale fat and oils and to release nutrients tha…
Blog Archives
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Snakes (Nearly) on a Plane
Argentine airport personnel averted potential disaster earlier this month, when they prevented one traveler from sneaking hundreds of dangerous stowaways onto his flight. They first became suspicious when an X-ray scanner revealed movement within the m…
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John von Neumann (1903)
Neumann was a Hungarian-born American mathematician. He emigrated to the US in 1930 to teach at Princeton University and was among the original faculty of its Institute for Advanced Study. He solved one of David Hilbert’s 23 theoretical problems, colla…
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Operation Ivory Coast
Operation Ivory Coast was a failed rescue mission conducted by US special forces during the Vietnam War. The goal of the mission was to rescue 61 American prisoners of war thought to be held at a prison camp in North Vietnam. After months of planning a…
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Lumière Brothers’ First Film Screening for a Paying Public Audience (1895)
In 1882, French inventor Louis Lumière developed a method of making photographic plates. By 1894, he and his brother August were producing 15 million plates a year. They worked on improving Edison’s kinetoscope, and, in 1895, patented their combinatio…
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sidestep
DEFINITION: (verb) Avoid or try to avoid fulfilling, answering, or performing (duties, questions, or issues).
SYNONYMS: evade, hedge, skirt, parry, fudge, circumvent, dodge, elude, duck, put off.
USAGE: The candidate tried to sidestep the iss…
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Poor Sleep Plagues Police
Sleep disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea, and shift work disorder are common among US and Canadian police officers, and excessive fatigue is impairing their ability to perform their duties safely and effectively. About 40 percent of respondents in a …
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transversal
DEFINITION: (adjective) Extending or lying across; in a crosswise direction; at right angles to the long axis.
SYNONYMS: cross, thwartwise.
USAGE: The transversal beams of the building’s frame were to be made of steel, not wood.
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John Quincy Adams
Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons of theological warfare are antiquated; the field of politics supplies the alchemists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to another…
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Marlene Dietrich (1901)
Dietrich was a German actress and singer. Abandoning an early ambition to be a violinist, she turned to acting and gained international attention as a femme fatale in The Blue Angel (1930). She then moved to Hollywood, where she starred in a series of …
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Memento Mori
In an iconic scene from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, the titular prince contemplates the skull of the former court jester Yorick, juxtaposing his jocular existence and his death. The skull is an example of a memento mori—an object intended to remind pe…
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The Hagia Sophia Is Completed (537 CE)
Distinguished by its size and rising succession of domes, the Hagia Sophia is the supreme masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. First a church, later a mosque, and now a museum, it was designed under Justinian I by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of…
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Paper Linking Chronic Fatigue to Virus Retracted
The journal that published a 2009 study linking a virus to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has retracted the controversial paper. In September, the study authors withdrew some of their findings after admitting that they were based on “contaminated data,…
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Boston Red Sox Sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees (1919)
Between 1914 and 1919, Ruth compiled an outstanding pitching record, but because pitchers do not play in every game, he was shifted to the outfield so that his powerful hitting could be used consistently. The following season, he was sold to the New Yo…
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George Dewey (1837)
Dewey was an American admiral and a hero of the Battle of Manila. He graduated from the US Naval Academy and served with Union naval forces in the American Civil War. In the Spanish-American War (1898), his Asiatic Squadron sailed to the Philippines an…
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Scientists Asked to Censor Bird Flu Studies
Concerned that details of recent research studies on a lab-made, highly transmissible version of bird flu could be used by terrorists to manufacture biological weapons, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity has asked two scientific jou…
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nickel-and-dime
DEFINITION: (adjective) Of minor importance.
SYNONYMS: small-time.
USAGE: He ran his nickel-and-dime operation out of the back of a pickup truck and dreamed of the day when he would own his own storefront.
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Louis Chevrolet (1878)
Born in Switzerland, Chevrolet was an auto mechanic who emigrated to the US in 1900 to race cars. In 1905, he drove a mile in a record 52.8 seconds. In 1911, he founded the Chevrolet Motor Company with support from General Motors founder William C. Dur…
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solitudinarian
DEFINITION: (noun) One leading a solitary or secluded life.
SYNONYMS: recluse, troglodyte, hermit.
USAGE: Peter, a self-proclaimed solitudinarian, lives in a cabin deep in the woods, miles from his closest neighbor.
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Charlemagne Crowned Emperor (800 CE)
Charlemagne was king of the Franks (768–814) and emperor of the West (800–814). With the exception of the British Isles and parts of Italy and Spain, he united in one vast state almost all the Christian lands of Western Europe. After restoring Leo …
