Robert Krulwich

The Little Metronome That Wouldn't

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:04:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1TMZASCR-I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWToUATLGzs

David Foster Wallace Tells Us About Freedom

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 18 May 2013 09:48:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmpYnxlEh0c

What Did I Do Last Summer? Oh, I Discovered How To Make Babies Without Sex. And You?

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:56:00 +0000

Ah, if only all summers could be like June, July and August 1740 — when three young guys (and a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old) did a science experiment that startled the world. In those days, you could do biology without a fancy diploma. More people could play.

That spring, the hot book — the one everyone was reading — was a gorgeously illustrated volume about insects by the French naturalist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur.

What Is It About Bees And Hexagons?

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:51:00 +0000

Solved! A bee-buzzing, honey-licking 2,000-year-old mystery that begins here, with this beehive. Look at the honeycomb in the photo and ask yourself: (I know you've been wondering this all your life, but have been too shy to ask out loud ... ) Why is every cell in this honeycomb a hexagon?

Bees, after all, could build honeycombs from rectangles or squares or triangles ...

But for some reason, bees choose hexagons. Always hexagons.

And not just your basic six-sided hexagon.

Astronomy's Little Secret: The Hidden Art Of 'Moonsweeping'

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 11 May 2013 10:02:00 +0000

A few nights ago, (Wednesday, I think, around midnight), I was by my window looking up, and there, hanging in the sky, I saw the moon. Not all of it, just what the almanac used to call "a crescent" — what my mom called a "toenail moon." The whole moon, I knew, was up there, hidden in shadow. The crescent part was facing the sun. That's the part you can see at the beginning of each month, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Elkins taught us, using a flashlight and a tennis ball to demonstrate the phases of the moon. Scotty Miller, I remember, got to hold the tennis ball. Mrs.

Music, Inside Out

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:03:00 +0000

What would it be like to be a string that made music? Not anything simple, like a guitar string or a cello string, but a magical string, a sine curve that's taut then loose, that doubles then doubles again, that sheds then dissolves into showers of notes — a flaming, sighing, looping, dissolving string. Curious?

That's what we've got here, from New York's School of Visual Arts grad student Daniel Sierra. This is his masters' thesis. This is music as you might imagine it in a magical laboratory under a magical microscope.

Moths That Drive Cars (Really)

Robert Krulwich — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:20:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2k1T2X7_Aw

Wildlife That Isn't Wild And Isn't Alive

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:48:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNUeSUXOc-w

Our Very Normal Solar System Isn't Normal Anymore

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:53:00 +0000

Some things you just count on. Like if we ever meet a space alien, it should have eyes (and maybe a head). Like somewhere out there, there are planets like ours. Like we have an ordinary solar system — "ordinary" because you know what it looks like ...

It's got a sun in the middle, little planets on the inside, bigger ones farther out. That's what most of them should look like, no?

We thought they should.

The Boomerang Rocket Ship: Shoot It Up, Back It Comes

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:45:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoxiK7K28PU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orUjSkc2pG0