The well-known polyesters that have proved so
useful for fabrics and other purposes are usually considered to be a man-made
product. However, according to Science magazine, researchers have found
what “appears to be the first report of a naturally occurring linear
polyester.” Bees of the genus Colletes secrete a substance to line cells
formed in the earth for housing their eggs. Once the substance is spread, a
still unknown process (possibly enzymatic) polymerizes it, and the resulting
polyester protects the bee larvae from water, fungi and soil microorganisms.
The tough natural polyester is said to resist decay for more than a year.
The sky over South America’s rain forest was turning that hard-to-describe color it gets right before the tropical night erases the color. Then, suddenly and silently, there the puma was! It had warily stepped into a forest clearing and stopped in its tracks.
For a moment the big cat stood motionless, except for the tip of its tail, which kept moving like a low-speed windshield wiper. Then, when it noticed that it was being watched, the puma leapt across the clearing and dashed into the f...
In the boundless grasslands of Africa stands a tree that often sings. The tree is of the acacia species and is known as the whistling thorn. Why? Because when the wind rushes through the delicate branches, the tree seemingly lifts its voice.
A lovely, lilting sound is produced when the tree’s unusually long and slender thorns vibrate in the wind. Adding to the melody of the thorns, the tree’s hollow galls produce a sound much like that of an empty bottle when air is blown across its mo...
YOU can close your eyes when you do not want to see. You can hold your breath when you do not want to smell. But you cannot really shut down your ears when you do not want to hear. The saying “to turn a deaf ear” is only a metaphor. Your hearing, like your heartbeat, goes on working even when you sleep.
Indeed, our ears are working all the time to keep us in touch with the world around us. They select, analyze, and decipher what we hear and communicate it to the brain. Within the confine...
NaturalAntifreeze. Humans
have fantasized for years about the time when they would be able to deep-freeze
someone and restore him to life sometime in the future. For some frogs,
however, this is no fantasy. They do it every year.
Like other animals, frogs are faced with the
problem of surviving winter without central heating or hearth fires. Their
solution? They “just squat in the open until they freeze solid,” says a report
in TheTorontoStar. When spring comes around, the frog thaws
...
THE sperm whale has been hunted with a persistence that has endangered existence of its kind. Factory-ship whaling has been banned, but it is estimated that these giants of the sea are still taken at the rate of about one every half hour. Why?
A large sperm whale yields several tons of sperm oil and spermaceti—a white waxy substance. Both of these substances are very valuable and bring wealth to the whalers.
Nevertheless, under pressure from conservationists, all countries, except Russia ...
Today
my life began. My parents do not know it yet, but it is I already. And I am to
be a girl. I shall have blond hair and blue eyes. Just about everything is
settled though, even the fact that I shall love flowers.
OCTOBER19:
Some
say that I am not a real person yet, that only my mother exists. But I am a
real person, just as a small crumb of bread is yet truly bread. My mother is.
And I am.
OCTOBER23:
My
mouth is just beginning to open now. Just think, in a year or so I s...
When insects detect anything like sugar they react as many people—they start to eat! But the plant Ajugararemota foils this urge to eat by its own special chemical compound, ajugarin-1. It blocks the insect’s receptor sites and eliminates its desire to munch on Ajugararemota. This chemical is just one of many anti-feedant compounds found among many members of the plant world. Some anti-feedants repel a broad range of insects; others spoil the appetites of only a single species. All are ...
When onions are sliced, an organic compound of sulphur is given off. Dissolved in water, it becomes sulphuric acid. So when this compound of sulphur gets into your eyes and dissolves in the moisture there, you have sulphuric acid produced. The old folk prescription for avoiding this: slice your onions under water. Then the acid is manufactured in the water, not your eyes.
Dr. Richard Blakemore was surveying sediments in a dish and noticed that bacteria in one sample gathered at one side of the dish. He rotated the dish. The bacteria swam back to the same area—the north side of the dish. He placed a small magnet on the south side of the dish. The bacteria collected there. Wherever he moved the magnet, there the bacteria gathered.
Dr. Richard Frankel of MIT joined Dr. Blakemore, and together they discovered by chemical analysis that these bacteria contained 1...
