Circus Science

Posted on by Lori Jia

Discover, February 1, 1996

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Number theory and neuroscience are probably not the first things that come to mind when you contemplate the circus. Yet along with the clowns and the fire-eaters, there’s a place for science under the big top. Performers and their coaches have to know, either instinctively or consciously, what the laws of physics and biology will permit them to do; moreover, a surprisingly large number of scientists are themselves circus fanatics, and a few are even performers. Perhaps it’s because the circus proves that science doesn’t stop at the lab door.

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Beetle of Burden

Posted on by Lori Jia

Discover, January 18, 1996

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Ounce for ounce, rhinoceros beetles are the world’s strongest animals. But just how strong are they? And what makes them so powerful?  Inspiration can come from the strangest places. While perusing the Guinness Book of World Records, Rodger Kram saw a startling entry. They claim that the world’s strongest animal is the rhinoceros beetle, and that it can support 850 times its own body weight, he says. Kram, a physiologist at the University of California at Berkeley, decided to test that claim in his lab. 

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First, Kill the Babies

Posted on by Lori Jia

Discover, January 18, 1996

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Twenty-five years ago this summer a Harvard graduate student named Sarah Hrdy went to northwestern India and met the monkeys that would make her famous. The immediate impetus for the trip was a series of lectures by Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich on the dangers of overpopulation. Though Ehrlich was speaking about humans, what Hrdy thought of were the Indian monkeys known as Hanuman langurs. The langurs are considered sacred by many Indians and so are regularly fed by the people with whom they come into contact. Consequently, near towns, Hanuman langurs live in extremely dense populations, and apparently this unnatural density had led to unnatural, pathologically violent behavior. There had been several reports of adult males killing infants.

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From Teeth to Beak

Posted on by Lori Jia

Discover, January 1, 1996

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For 135 years, the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, led a lonely life. A couple of ambiguous fossils aside, no avian specimen anywhere near as old as this 147-million-year-old creature had been found. As China opens up to fossil hunting, however, it is giving Archaeopteryx some company. Three years ago researchers reported finding a 135-million- year-old bird, Sinornis, in China. And this past year Lian-hai Hou of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his co-workers reported the discovery of an equally remarkable bird, possibly dating back as far as 142 million years.

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