Horses have a shared history with man going back millennia to their domestication around 4000 B.C. Yet only in very recent years have scientists begun to turn the tools of modem science on this remarkable animal that has been so wrapped up in human dreams and legends. Now modern scientific research [...]
In March 1941, after a year of unbroken and devastating U-boat onslaughts, the British War Cabinet decided to try a new strategy in the foundering naval campaign. To do so, they hired an intensely private, bohemian physicist who was also an ardent socialist. Patrick Blackett was a former navy office[...]
The exciting history of a small group of British and American scientists who, during World War II, developed the new field of operational research to turn back the tide of German submarines--revolutionizing the way wars are waged and won.
In March 1941, after a year of unbroken and devastating [...]
A "Washington Post" Notable Book
In March 1941, after a year of devastating U-boat attacks, the British War Cabinet turned to an intensely private, bohemian physicist named Patrick Blackett to turn the tide of the naval campaign. Though he is little remembered today, Blackett did as much as anyo[...]
Sir Francis Walsingham's official title was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, but in fact this pious, tight-lipped Puritan was England's first spymaster. A ruthless, fiercely loyal civil servant, Walsingham worked brilliantly behind the scenes to foil Elizabeth's rival Mary Queen of Scots an[...]
Unlike every other domestic animal, the cat evolved as a solitary animal, not a group-dweller. A cat in a household is almost literally a fish out of water. That cats can nonetheless get along with people and (sometimes) other cats when forced to, is testimony to a remarkable adaptability. But it al[...]
"A god, a companion to sorceresses at the Witches' Sabbath, a beast who is royal in Siam, who in Japan is called 'the tiger that eats from the hand, ' the adored of Mohammed, Laura's rival with Petrarch, the friend of Richelieu, the favorite of poets"--such are just a few of the feline distinctions [...]
Naturvänner tror ofta att naturen mår bäst om människan lämnar den i fred. Naturen är konstant, självreglerande och i balans. Men dessa trossatser kommer på skam när de ställs mot aktuell ekologisk forskning. Naturen vimlar av paradoxer. Att rädda utrotningshotade arter eller att bevara e[...]