Notebook
- Tech
English Channel tunnel
First proposed in 1802 as a tunnel for horse-drawn carriages, the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, was built starting in 1987 and opened in 1994.
- Paleontology
The dinosaur ‘chicken from hell’
Fossils suggest that a supersized chickenlike reptile called Anzu wyliei roamed what are now the Dakotas roughly 67 million years ago.
- Psychology
How string quartets stay together
New data tracking millisecond-scale corrections suggests that some ensembles are more autocratic — following one leader —while other musical groups are more democratic, making corrections equally.
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- Animals
Pelican spiders: slow, safe assassins
Spiders, thank goodness, haven’t evolved assassin drones. But the specialized hunters of the family Archaeidae can kill at a distance.
- Microbes
Power-packed bacterial spores generate electricity
With mighty bursts of rehydration, bacterial spores offer a new source of renewable energy.
- Agriculture
Where antibiotics go
Of the 51 tons of antibiotics consumed every day in the United States, about 80 percent goes into animal production.
- Psychology
Beatles reaction puzzles even psychologists
From the February 29, 1964, issue: Psychologists are as puzzled as parents over the explosive effect the Beatles are having on American teen-agers.
- Materials Science
Making artificial muscles with a spin
Scientists have given ordinary fishing line and sewing thread a new twist. When coiled into tight corkscrews, the fibers can lift loads more than 100 times as heavy as those hefted by human muscles.
- Physics
Levitating objects with sound
Physicists have levitated millimeter-sized objects. Now, the objects can levitate and move in all directions.
- Animals
‘Packrat’ is the new term for ‘really organized’
The more eclectic hoarder species segregate pantry from lumber room from junk museum. The result is more orderly than the closets of some human packrats.
