Robert Krulwich

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

A 'Who Do You Hang With?' Map of America

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:55:00 +0000

Look at the center of this map, at the little red dot that marks Kansas City. Technically, Kansas City is at the edge of Missouri, but here on this map it's in the upper middle section of a bigger space with strong blue borders. We don't have a name for this bigger space yet, but soon we will.

I would call it, for the moment, "The Part Of America Kansas City Hangs With" because that's what this map is saying. It's a new, intriguing way to see our country. This one was built by tracking dollar bill circulation. There've been similar maps built from phone call data.

The Big Squeeze: Can Cities Save The Earth?

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:18:00 +0000

Let's get dense. If we take all the atoms inside you, all roughly 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them, and squeeze away all the space inside, then, says physicist Brian Greene:

That's a very tight fit. So tight that in real life, it couldn't happen. It's not physically possible. Atoms won't crunch that close. But people, it seems, are willing to try.

What Happened When Humans Met An Alien Intelligence? Sex Happened

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:16:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i_oJn-9d_0

Falling Off The Moon

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:02:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o3Oi9JWsyM

Phooey On Flu

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:33:00 +0000

A lot of you have had it by now, or are having it or are about to be exposed. This year's flu is called "H3N2" and this week it's doing big business in about 47 states, Chicago and New York. If you've had a flu shot and if you wash your hands several times a day for 20 seconds, (which is the time it takes to hum "Happy Birthday to You" two times through) you might reduce your odds of getting sick.

But your biggest ally is your immune system. It's hard, during flu season, to avoid inhaling a virus or two (or three, or 10,000), but that doesn't mean they're going to take you over.

A Very, Very, Very Delicate Balance

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 11:06:00 +0000

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

Grrr, Said The Grylloblattid. I'm Not Leaving. Not Yet.

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:25:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbR-dT83zKM

Another Year And I'm Still Here: A New Year's Meditation

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:26:00 +0000

Updated Jan. 1, 2013: I've added a postscript to this post. You can find it at the bottom of this page.

Look at yourself. Right now.

You are muscle,skin, bone, brain, blood, warmed by energy, and all of you, every cell, even the subsets of those cells, all trillions and trillions of them, are going to tire, waste and depart. In 10 years almost every bit of you will have been replaced by new bits.

And yet, you will still be you.

Double Thanks

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:27:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9jghLeYufQ

Why Not Say It Simply? How About Very Simply?

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:46:00 +0000

There are people (and I hear from them constantly) who think if a subject is sophisticated, like science, the language that describes it should be sophisticated, too.

If smart people say torque, ribosome, limbic, stochastic and kinase, then the rest of us should knuckle down, concentrate and figure out what those words mean. That's how we'll know when we've learned something: when we've mastered the technical words.

I beg to differ. Fancy words are nice if you're feeling fancy. But suppose all you want to do is understand how something works.

The Big Apple's Mayor Makes A Very Scary Video

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 10:28:00 +0000

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

Death, But Softly

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:21:00 +0000

It was 1569, or maybe early 1570, when it happened: A young French gentleman was out for a ride with his workers, all of them on horseback, when suddenly, "like a thunderbolt," he felt something thick and fleshy slam him from behind. (It was an overzealous, galloping assistant who couldn't stop in time.) Michel de Montaigne's horse crumbled, he went flying up, then down, he crashed to the ground.

Finnish Underwater Ice Fishing Mystery Finally Solved

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 13:34:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs00QjiJZQ

Celebrating Autumn All Year Round ... By Becoming A Leaf

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:59:00 +0000

It is autumn, and where I live the leaves are peaking; there is a riot of them everywhere, narrow ones, broad ones, droopy ones, crunchy ones. Leaves come in so many shapes, hues, textures — the closer you look, the more differences you see.

Charles Darwin And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:39:00 +0000

I guess everybody, even the smartest people who ever lived, have days when they feel dumb — really, really dumb. Oct. 1, 1861, was that kind of day for Charles Darwin.

In a letter to his friend Charles Lyell, Darwin says, "I am very poorly today," and then — and I want you to see this exactly as he wrote it, so you know this isn't a fake; it comes from the library of the American Philosophical Society, courtesy of their librarian Charles Greifenstein. Can you read it?

It says:

Whoah!

Tough Old Lizard To Face Grave Romantic Troubles, Say Scientists

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Oh, dear.

First off, this lizard? It's not really a lizard. It's an almost vanished species, a reptile like no other.

Its nearest relatives are ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, animals that lived during the Mesozoic, before the great dinosaurs. They're all extinct now. This is the only one (of the order Sphenodontia) to make it through the meteorite that crashed to Earth and wiped out the big guys, through ice ages, volcanoes, changes in sea levels, through rat invasions, human invasions, pig invasions.

Sun Goes Down. Up Comes A Mystery

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:45:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxJ4M7tyLRE

Obama's Secret Weapon In The South: Small, Dead, But Still Kickin'

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:08:00 +0000

Look at this map, and notice that deep, deep in the Republican South, there's a thin blue band stretching from the Carolinas through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. These are the counties that went for Obama in the last election. A blue crescent in a sea of red.

These same counties went mostly blue in 2004 and 2000. Why? Well, the best answer, says marine biologist Craig McClain, may be an old one, going back before the Civil War, before 1776, before Columbus, back more than 100 million years to the days when the Deep South was under water.

Are Those Spidery Black Things On Mars Dangerous? (Yup.)

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 15:03:00 +0000

You are 200 miles directly above the Martian surface — looking down. This image was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Jan. 27, 2010. (The color was added later.) What do we see? Well, sand, mostly. As you scroll down, there's a ridge crossing through the image, then a plain, then dunes, but keep looking. You will notice, when you get to the dunes, there are little black flecks dotting the ridges, mostly on the sunny side, like sunbathing spiders sitting in rows. Can you see them?

What are those things?

Do You Know Where Your Children Are? Is That Always A Good Thing?

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:56:00 +0000

There was a time — and it wasn't that long ago — when kids would leave home on a summer morning and roam free. "I knew kids who were pushed out the door at eight in the morning," writes Bill Bryson of his childhood in the 1950s, "and not allowed back until five unless they were on fire or actively bleeding." That's what kids did. They went out. Parents let them, and everybody did it. "If you stood on any corner with a bike — any corner anywhere — more than a hundred children, many of whom you had never seen before, would appear and ask you where you were going," Bryson writes.

Getting Slower And Slower: How Slow Can You Go?

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:49:00 +0000

Before we go slow, let's go fast, so fast you can't go any faster. That would be light in a vacuum, traveling at 670 million miles per hour ...

Light, of course, can slow down. When light passes through water, it loses speed. A diamond is an even better speed bump. It can slow a beam of light by 40 percent.

But moving on, you and I are going pretty fast right now, though we don't notice.

U.S. Explodes Atomic Bombs Near Beers To See If They Are Safe To Drink

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:44:00 +0000

So you're minding your own business when all of a sudden, a nuclear bomb goes off, there's a shock wave, fires all around, general destruction and you, having somehow survived, need a drink. What can you do? There is no running water, not where you are. But there is a convenience store. It's been crushed by the shock wave, but there are still bottles of beer, Coke and diet soda intact on the floor.

So you wonder: Can I grab one of those beers and gulp it down? Or is it too radioactive? And what about taste? If I drink it, will it taste OK?

This could happen, no?

Volcano Shoots Geyser Of Water Up Into Space

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:58:00 +0000

What we have here is a moon — a small one (slightly wider than the state of Arizona) — circling Saturn.

If you look closely, you will see a small splay of light at its top, looking like a circular fountain.

That's because it is a fountain — of sorts.

What's With Frosty? Why Isn't He Showing Up On Time?

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:39:00 +0000

Check out this graph of America's "Growing Season" — it measures the number of continuous days and nights when it never gets below 32 degrees. You could call this our "frost-free" time of year. In many places, the frost-free season begins in the spring and ends somewhere in October.

As you can see, over the 20^th century, it's been staying frost-free longer...and longer...and longer...

...about two weeks longer, on average, with a pronounced spike over the last 30 years. Which means your sweater stays folded in the dresser a little longer these days — on average.

Which Is Bigger: A Human Brain Or The Universe?

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:10:00 +0000

This is one of those fun-to-think-about questions. A brain isn't much to look at, after all. It's about the size of your two fists put together, three pounds to hold, but oh my, what it can do.

With our brains, we can think backwards, imagine forwards, conjure, create things that don't exist, leap vast distances.

Five Men Agree To Stand Directly Under An Exploding Nuclear Bomb

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:45:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlE1BdOAfVc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_nLNcEbIC8

Weekend Special: Guess What? Sweat Is Not Smelly! (So Why Do I Smell?)

Robert Krulwich — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 04:13:00 +0000

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

Showing Vultures A Little Love

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:36:00 +0000

Think of a giraffe lying on the Serengeti plain. He has just died, maybe of disease, maybe he was killed by a pride of lions, but now he's a 19-foot-long, 4,000-pound mound of meat, which very soon is going to stink and rot and muck up the neighborhood.

The lions that did it will eat roughly 35 pounds each. With five or six lions, that's a start, but there's a lot of giraffe left. Hyenas will help. Jackals will, too, but the bulk of the cleanup goes to the hero of my tale, nature's prize janitor — hard-working, efficient, unbeloved, unadmired and now down on its luck.

To Map Or Not To Map The Brain? That's Tonight's Question

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:08:00 +0000

"Mind is such an odd predicament for matter to get into," says the poet Diane Ackerman. "If a mind is just a few pounds of blood, dream and electric, how does it manage to contemplate itself? Worry about its soul? Do time and motion studies? Admire the shy hooves of a goat? Know that it will die?

...How can a neuron feel compassion?"

Yes, how?

All over the world, neuroscientists are beginning to address these questions, which are really the same question: How do gooey, stringy brain cells produce a mind?