Friday, September 29, 2006

Glass Bridge for the Grand Canyon

This year, people will get to see the Grand Canyon in a new way. A new horseshoe-shaped glass bridge will extend, or stretch out, over the edge of the canyon. Tourists standing on the bridge will be able to look down and see the Colorado River 4,000 feet below. That's about four times the length of the Empire State Building from top to bottom! The glass bridge, called the "Skywalk," was built by the Hualapai (WAH-la-pye), a nation of American Indians. They worked to fix up the area so that more people will visit the world's biggest gorge, or canyon. "The Skywalk will be an attraction (interesting place) unlike any other in the world," said Sheri Yellowhawk, who helped get the bridge built.

Glass Bridge for the Grand Canyon (Photo)

Glass Bridge for the Grand Canyon (Photo)

Glass Bridge for the Grand Canyon (Photo)

Glass Bridge for the Grand Canyon (Photo)

Glass Bridge for the Grand Canyon (Photo)
Read more at http://www.grandcanyonskywalk.com/ and http://www.destinationgrandcanyon.com/

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Cornell Robotic Chair


Gold House

Gold house for the tourists…

To the building left 2 tons of gold

And has spent 38 million $.


Gold House (Photo)


Gold House (Photo)


Gold House (Photo)

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

World's Smallest Teddy Bear

World's Smallest Teddy Bear

World's Smallest Teddy Bear

World's Smallest Teddy Bear

World's Smallest Teddy Bear

World's Smallest Teddy Bear

It's Your Move!

Chess

Since the earliest Indian prototypes emerged1400 years ago, chess has captivated players with its creative blend of calculation, artistry, and bloodless struggle. Along its westward trek to the Andalus, the game won adherents, including Caliph Al-Ma'Mun of Baghdad, who awarded the first "grandmaster" titles in 819 C.E. As it migrated from Muslim to Christian centers, chess with pieces reflecting the social structures of feudal Europe evolved into the game we have today.

Benjamin Franklin penned the first chess article in Colonial America, and the first modern international chess tournament was held in London in 1851. Over a century later, the Cold War was waged on a chess board as American Bobby Fischer defeated his Soviet opponent. His 1972 victory still exerts a pull on contemporary enthusiasts.

Chess was ushered into the computer age with the 1997 "man vs. machine" match between Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue. At the same time, women stormed the barricades of the traditionally male-dominated sport. The victories of Hungarian sisters Susan, Sophia, and especially Judith Polgar (who achieved grandmaster [GM] status at age 15) against top male grandmasters are eroding entrenched gender biases and attracting more females to the board.

Today the ancient game of kings is a park bench, coffeehouse, and Internet lingua franca that transcends parochial interests. The Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) list of member nations rivals those of the largest world athletic bodies. The U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) reports 90,000 active tournament players and over 1700 affiliated clubs. A global village pastime, indeed.

More than fun and games
A library collection is a community asset. Studies indicate that chess is a healthy mental pursuit for children of all skill levels; the educational nonprofit Chess-in-the-Schools reports improvements in reading scores and a variety of other intellectual and social benefits for kids who accept the rigors and rewards of chess study.

Many library collections currently have only a smattering of old classics, international tournament books, and player anthologies; few titles date from beyond the 1980s, and there is often little cohesion in the selections. Fortunately, we live in a golden age of chess publishing, and the following tips will assist librarians unacquainted with the noble embrace of Caissa (patron goddess of chess) to build responsive print collections.

This is not to discount the impact of computers and the Internet, which have opened new vistas for participation. Chess engines and databases offer new access to master games and chip-assisted analysis. As 24/7 opponents, computers are excellent repositories for personal tournament and "skittles," or offhand, games. For now, however, electronic sources supplement rather than supplant books and periodicals.

The rules of the game
In order to select appropriate materials for your collection, it helps to understand how the game works. Chess is played on an 8" x 8" board of alternating white and colored squares with 16 identical pieces on each side-eight pawns; two each rooks, knights, and bishops; a queen and a king. The object is to attack the king leaving him no escape--checkmate! The variety of paths to that end are staggering. Estimates for the total number of board positions after ten moves are as high as 10120.

After learning the moves and rules, a complete player must gain proficiency in the opening, middle, and endgame. Strategy and tactics are dynamic forces that dictate the course and outcome of play. You'll need coverage of the five aforementioned themes. Master games are great learning tools when the authors sufficiently develop and illustrate overarching concepts for the amateur. And history and biography enhance chess appreciation.

Chess resources
With basic and intermediate-level materials as your acquisitions compass, start with established publishers associated with instructional excellence: Gambit, Random House Games & Puzzles, Batsford, Sterling, Everyman Chess (formerly Cadogan), and Siles. Noted authors include GM Lev Alburt and Bruce Pandolfini (the real-life teacher of Searching for Bobby Fischer); Sunil Weermantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach is another student favorite.

If you know zilch about chess, enlist the aid of local clubs and expert players who tutor in evaluating the latest publisher's catalog. (Online state affiliate and scholastic club directories are listed at http://www.chessmaniac.com/ ) An excellent source of chess book reviews can be found at http://www.jeremysilman.com/

A good chess book should have clear, accurate diagrams, with obvious links between notation and position. Pass on buying or weed anything with squares offset, or frequent misplaced or mislabeled pieces. Also, look critically at any title that uses older descriptive notation to record chess moves. Algebraic notation has become the universal standard and the system newcomers will learn.

Out-of-print gems like Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games and Practical Chess Endings by Estonian GM Paul Keres are perennials that should remain on most library shelves. Likewise The Oxford Companion to Chess has no peer in print. However, treatments of opening variations grow stale as theory advances and are worth a weeding review each year.

The titles below are appropriate for most public libraries. Starred [*] titles are core purchases. Academic libraries, especially those serving intercollegiate teams, may require high-powered analysis from Sahovski's family of Chess Informant titles. Remember that the Library of Congress Talking Book program offers chess books and periodicals on audiocassette and in Braille.


By: Carlson, Greg, Library Journal


Greg Carlson is a Library Program Administrator at the Bureau of Braille and Talking Book Library Services, Daytona Beach, FL. He achieved an "A" tournament rating from the U.S. Chess Federation. Thanks to Jeremy Silman, Alicia Ellison, Brad Ward, Daytona Beach, FL. He achieved an "A" tournament rating from the U.S. Chess Federation. Thanks to Jeremy Silman, Alicia Ellison, Brad Ward, Marsha Fottler, Garry Viering, and Tom Green for their contributions

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Astonishing Facts

1) Longest English Word:
Praetertranssubstan tiationalistical ly has 37 letters.

2) Book Without Letter "e":
GADFY, written by Earnest Wright in 1939 is a 50,000+ word book, which doesn't contain a single word with 'e' in it

3) Word without Vowel:
Rhythm
Sky
Fry
Cry

4) Human Brain:
Organ of body which has no sensation when cut.

5) Crocodile:
Only animal & reptile which sheds tear while eating.

6) No of Alphabets, which SOUND AS WORDS:

They are
** **B* Bee *
** **C* Sea*
** **G** * Zee*
** ** I* Eye *
** ** Q* Queue*
** ** R* Are *
** ** S* Yes *
** **T* Tea* **
** ** U* You *
** ** Y* Why

Fascinating Animals, Birds, Trees:

1) SNAILS have 14175 teeth laid along 135 rows on their tongue.
2) A BUTTERFLY has 12,000 eyes.
3) DOLPHINS sleep with 1 eye open.
4) A BLUE WHALE can eat as much as 3 tones of food everyday, but at the same time can live without food for 6 months.
5) The EARTH has over 12,00,000 species of animals, 3,00,000 species of plants & 1,00,000 other species.
6) The fierce DINOSAUR was TYRANNOSAURS which has sixty long & sharp teeth, used to attack & eat other dinosaurs.
7) DEMETRIO was a mammal like REPTILE with a snail on its back. This acted as a radiator to cool the body of the animal.
8) CASSOWARY is one of the dangerous BIRD, that can kill a man or animal by tearing off with its dagger like claw.
9) The SWAN has over 25,000 feathers in its body.
10) OSTRICH eats pebbles to help digestion by grinding up the ingested food.
11) POLAR BEAR can look clumsy & slow but during chase on ice, can reach 25 miles / hr of speed.
12) KIWIS are the only birds, which hunt by sense of smell.
13) ELEPHANT teeth can weigh as much as 9 pounds.
14) OWL is the only bird, which can rotate its head to 270 degrees.

What are They :

1) If we say 'MUMMY', they come together & go apart when we say DADDY': LIPS
2) What goes up & never comes down: AGE
3) Patches over patches but no stitches: CABBAGE
4) What is that we cannot see, but is always before you: FUTURE
5) What goes up & down a hill, but never moves: ROAD
6) You can never wet it: SHADOW
7) What belongs to You, but used by your friends more often you do: YOUR NAME

In 24 Hours Average Human:

1) HEART beats 1,03,689 times.
2) LUNGS respire 23,045 times.
3) BLOOD flows 16,80,000 miles.
4) NAILS grow 0.00007 inches
5) HAIR grows 0.01715 inches
6) Take 2.9 pounds WATER (including all liquids)
7) Take of 3.25 pounds FOOD.
8) Breathe 438 cubic feet AIR.
9) Lose 85.60, BODY TEMPERATURE.
10) Produce 1.43 pints SWEAT.
11) Speak 4,800 WORDS.
12) During SLEEP move 25.4 times

Tawny Frogmouth

The tawny frogmouth reaches a length of 1 to 1 1/2 feet (30 to 45 centimeters) and a weight of three to four ounces (84 to 112 grams). It has a 1 1/2-to-2-foot (45-to-60-centimeter) wingspan. The plumage of the tawny frogmouth is ash gray or tawny brown with flecks of brown and white. It has a wide, shallow bill with a hooked tip. The bill is surrounded by bristles which grow straight up from the bird's face. It was once believed these bristles helped guide insects into the bird's mouth.

The tawny frogmouth is found in almost all habitats in Australia and Tazmania. Most often, it is found in woodland and dense forests but also inhabits riverbeds in the outback and areas within the hot desert interior. The bird appears rather comfortable around humans, as it frequents golf courses, suburban parks, and gardens.

The tawny frogmouth sleeps during the day. Active at night, the bird usually remains within a relatively small area. It is a sedentary bird, or one which does not migrate with the changes in seasons. A few exceptions to this rule are some of the frogmouth populations in the coastal rainforests and inland deserts of Queensland which do migrate.

When the tawny frogmouth was first studied it was believed that the bird's wide mouth was used to catch insects as the bird flew through the air. Later studies dismissed that theory and discovered that the tawny frogmouth is a ground-feeder. It does most of its hunting just after sunset and just before dawn. It is able to sit motionless on a perch for long periods, waiting until it spots an unsuspecting victim. Quietly, the bird swoops down from its perch and seizes the victim. This method helps the tawny frogmouth capture scorpions, beetles, frogs, and small mice and birds. The bird also eats carrion, or dead animals, left by another predator or found along the roadside. The bird also eats fruit on occasion, such as grapefruit and oranges. Although the frogmouth is not primarily seen as a fruit-eating bird, it can, at times, cause great damage to crops.

The male and female tawny frogmouth nest and roost as a pair throughout the year. The male builds a flimsy nest from twigs on a horizontal, forked branch. The nest can be from 16 to 32 feet (5 to 10 meters) off the ground. Some use a nest left by another bird and line it with feathers, lichen, moss, and spiderwebs.

After mating, the female lays two white eggs in the nest. She incubates the eggs at night while the male hunts for food. During the day, the two frequently exchange roles. After an incubation period of one month, the eggs hatch. They remain close to the nest for an additional month until they are able to fly.

The call of the tawny frogmouth is a series of repeated, low-pitched hoots. It also emits, or lets out, an occasional hiss and screech.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Tapaculou

The tapaculou is found in South and Central America. It inhabits the dense forest and the thick undergrowth of the brushland. The fully grown tapaculou reaches a length of 5 to 10 inches (11 to 25 centimeters). The plumage of the tapaculou is primarily dark gray or brown with reddish-brown or black-and-white bars on the bottom feathers. One of the most distinctive features of the tapaculou is a flap which covers the nostrils. The tapaculou has a stout body, short, rounded wings and large feet and legs.

The tapaculou is a ground-dwelling bird. It pokes along the dense vegetation, feeding on insects, spiders, and plant matter. When feeding, the tapaculou is more often heard than seen. While its feathering acts as a camouflage, its loud voice almost always gives away its location.

The nest of the tapaculou is most commonly built on or near the ground. At times, the nest is placed a few feet (about one meter) off the ground in the undergrowth. Other species dig holes called burrows. Most nests are dome-shaped or cup-shaped and have a small side entrance.

After a male and female have mated, the female lays two to four large white eggs in her nest. The parents take turns incubating the eggs. They do this by gently sitting on the eggs, using the heat from their bodies to warm them. The length of the incubation period is unknown. The length of time the baby birds remain in the nest, called the nestling period, is also unknown.

The tapaculou has a loud voice. Some species, such as the bristlefronts and huet-huets, are somewhat musical, producing a sound some people find pleasing. Other tapaculous are not as musical, producing a series of similar notes over and over.

Some of the 29 species of tapaculos are: Name Genus/species Black-throated huet-huet Pteroptochos tarnii Brasilia tapaculo Scytalopus novacapitalis Chestnut-throated huet-huet Pterooptochos castaneus Crested gallito Rhinocrypta lanceolata Ocellated tapaculo Acropternis orthonyx Slaty tapaculo Merulaxis ater Stresemann's bristle-front Merulaxis stresemanni

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Winter Wren

The adult winter wren grows to a length of four inches (10 centimeters), weighs 1/2 ounce (14 grams), and has a wingspan of five inches (13 centimeters). The adult male and female are both light brown with off-white breast feathers. The juvenile is a lighter color than the adults. The winter wren has a short, pointed bill.

The winter wren lives in the woods and bushy areas as well as rocky areas and open marshes. It is a remarkable bird in that it can adapt to any environment that has plenty of thick plants and vegetation. The winter wren, however, is more common in the country than it is in urban areas.

Although its name might suggest that it likes cold temperatures, the winter wren has a hard time living through long periods of freezing temperatures. Its small body looses heat very quickly. Also, the winter wren has a hard time finding insects to eat when the ground is covered with snow. It often gets together with other winter wrens in what is called a community. The community is formed when birds attract one another with a series of loud calls. The small community of birds often uses an abandoned building or nest as a roosting site. When a bird rests or sleeps it is said to be roosting.

The winter wrens lives on a diet of insects, spiders, small beetles, craneflies, mosquitos, ants, aphids, and spiders. It also eats the pupae of butterflies and moths. The pupae is the immature insect in the cocoon stage, or when it is wrapped in a thin skin. The winter wren also eats snails, slugs, and an occasional small fish and moth. The small bird works hard for its food. It leaps from branch to branch searching leaves and vegetation for insects.

The breeding season for the winter wren is from April to July. The winter wren is ready to breed at the age of one year. During the breeding season, the male winter wren is territorial. This means he does not like other male winter wrens to be near. He claims his territory by sitting high on a tree branch and singing loudly. He also keeps busy building nests within his territory. A male winter wren usually builds two or three nests during mating season in an attempt to attract a female to his territory. When a female arrives, she immediately begins lining her chosen nest with feathers, preparing it for the laying of her eggs.

In April, the female lays and incubates her eggs, which are white with brown spots. A bird incubates its eggs by gently sitting on them and using the warmth from its body to heat the eggs. Eggs do not hatch if they are not incubated. After about two weeks the clutch, or group, of eggs hatch. The male helps the female feed the young. The male often has more than one nest to tend as he frequently has more than one mate. The young are able to fly after about 16 to 17 days.

The life span of the winter wren is unknown.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Narwhal Whale

Narwhals are covered with grey-green patches of skin, which is darker on top than on their undersides. A male has a single, twisted horn on his forehead. This horn, called a tusk, may grow up to 10 feet (three meters) long. The tusk is an elongated tooth that grows through the upper lip. The narwhal's head is rounded, and its flippers are small and rounded. Unlike other dolphins, the narwhal does not have a dorsal (back) fin. Like all whales, narwhals have blowholes on the tops of their heads. These mammals breathe through their blowholes. They have to go to the surface of the water to breathe. Each narwhal has just one blowhole. These sea mammals average 13 to 16 feet (four to five meters) in length and can weigh up to 3,500 pounds (1,575kilograms).

Narwhals live in the Arctic sea. They live in groups called pods. These pods can have up to 2,000 members. Narwhals not living in a family pod often separate by age group and sex. Narwhals have a layer of fatty tissue, called blubber, located right under their skin. This fat is used to keep the animals warm in colder waters and acts as a reserve food.

Narwhals feed on fish, cuttlefish, shrimp, crabs, and squid. Since they have only two teeth, they are unable to chew food, so they must swallow their prey whole. Narwhals may use echolocation to help them find their food. Echolocation is like the radar used to track airplanes. Narwhals send out very high-pitched special sounds from their noses. Human beings cannot hear these sounds. Beluga whales have air sacs in their heads that direct the sounds to certain places in the water. The sounds then travel through the water, bounce off objects, and travel back to the whales. Narwhals can tell how far away their prey is by the amount of time it takes for the sounds to come back to them. This process shows the whales exactly where to swim to catch their prey. Narwhals can tell the difference between sounds that have bounced off of rocks and fish.

Mating among narwhals takes place from March to May. The gestation period (duration of pregnancy) is 14 to 15 months. The female then gives birth to a single calf. The calf is born tail-first. The mother helps the calf by pushing it with her nose up to the surface of the water for air. A newborn calf measures about five feet (1 1/2 meters) in length, and weighs about 175 pounds (80 meters). At birth, the calf has dark grayish-blue skin. The mother nurses the calf until it is ready to eat fish.

Killer whales prey on narwhals. Arctic people kill narwhals by harpoon, or by net, and use the animals' meat, blubber, hide, and tusks.

The life span of the narwhal is about 30 or 40 years.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Sea Horse

The sea horse grows to a length of between 1 and 14 inches (2 1/2 to 36 centimeters) depending on the species. Its body is curved with a thin tail and a horse-like head. The belly of the sea horse is puffy and round. Unlike other fish, the sea horse is a much more vertical fish. Along its back, the sea horse has a small fin which moves from side to side to propel this fish through water. The sea horse has many spines along its back and head. Most predators avoid the sea horse because of its bony body and spiny points.

The sea horse is found in the coastal, offshore waters of the Pacific Ocean around Indo-Australia and western North America and in the Atlantic Ocean around eastern North America, Europe, and Africa. It generally inhabits warm, shallow waters with seagrass beds. The sea horse spends much of its time in the deep, fast-running channels in the water. It uses its prehensile, or grasping, tail to secure itself in one place in the water.

The sea horse is a carnivorous creature. This means it feeds mostly on animals. The sea horse survives on a diet of small fish and tiny, microscopic organisms known as plankton. The sea horse is equipped with specialized sight for watching prey. Each of its eyes is able to move separately. The sea horse usually waits for its prey by hovering near seaweed and coral which matches its skin coloring.

Mating season for the sea horse is year-round in tropical waters, but only during the spring and summer in colder areas. The sea horse is unusual in its mating habits. The male sea horse is the one to carry the developing young. The process begins with the female sea horse releasing her eggs into a pouch on the male's belly. As the eggs attach themselves to the spongy walls of the pouch, the male fertilizes them. The sea horse has a gestation period (duration of pregnancy) of between two and four weeks. During this period the male produces special fluids which nourish the young as they grow. When the gestation period is over, about 50 young are released from the male's pouch. The young sea horses look like miniature versions of their parents.

The sea horse is a very popular fish among humans for its unusual shape. Many people try to keep sea horses in their saltwater aquariums. It is very difficult to keep a sea horse alive in an aquarium because of the huge amount of food it needs to survive. People once believed the sea horse was only a character in mythology.

The life span of the sea horse is unknown.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Pirate Perch

Pirate perch generally grow to be about six inches (15 centimeters) long. They have two bars, or stripes, along their caudal, or tail, fins. The most interesting physical feature of pirate perch are their moving anus. When a pirate perch is very young its anus is located on the bottom portion of its body near its caudal, or tail, fin. As the pirate perch grows its anus creeps closer and closer toward its throat. When a pirate perch is fully grown its anus is located directly under its throat.

Like most other fish, pirate perch need oxygen to survive. Since they do not have lungs and cannot process oxygen from the air, like humans, they have to find the oxygen they need from the water in which they live. They do this by taking water into their mouths, keeping the oxygen they need, and then releasing the chemical wastes through the gills on the sides of their bodies.

Pirate perch may be found in the still, slow-moving waters of the United States from New York to Texas and from Michigan to the Mississippi Valley.

Pirate perch are carnivorous creatures. They survive on a diet of only meat. Generally, their diet includes many small fish and invertebrates, or spineless creatures.

Pirate perch are often preyed upon by birds, mammals, reptiles, and larger fish.

Mating season for pirate perch is in the springtime during the months of April and May. Female pirate perch release eggs into the water and male pirate perch fertilize those eggs. This process of releasing and fertilizing eggs is known as spawning. During mating season, male and female pirate perch change colors. Their scales become an iridescent purplish color. Iridescent means to shine with colors like a rainbow.

The life span of pirate perch is unknown.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Sacramento Sucker

Sacramento suckers are bottom-dwellers. They live along the bottoms of rivers and lakes connected with the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers of California.

Generally, Sacramento suckers grow to be about two feet (60 centimeters) long and weigh up to four pounds (nearly two kilograms). They have long, streamlined bodies, a number of fins to help them swim, and thick-lipped mouths designed for sucking for food.

Sacramento suckers move through the water because of their many fins. Their caudal, or tail, fins swish from side to side to propel these fish through water, while their dorsal and anal, or back and belly, fins work to keep these fish balanced in the water.

Sacramento suckers have mouths like the ends of vacuum cleaners. Because they suck up everything with which they come in contact, they are not very picky eaters. Their diet includes a variety of insect larvae, worms, fish eggs, and vegetation. This kind of meat and plant diet causes Sacramento suckers to be classified as omnivores, or animals which eat both meat and plants.

In the springtime, Sacramento suckers migrate upstream to spawn, or mate. Sometimes one female will meet with two or three males for mating. The female releases her eggs and any of the two or three males may fertilize them. Sacramento sucker eggs have an incubation period of about one week. An incubation period is the growth period between the fertilizing and hatching of the eggs. Female Sacramento suckers may release up to 100,000 eggs.

Like other fish, Sacramento suckers must have oxygen to survive. Unlike humans, who have lungs and are able to process oxygen from the air, Sacramento suckers have to find the oxygen they need from the water in which they live. Sacramento suckers take water into their mouths, use the oxygen in the water, and filter the waste chemicals out through the gills on the sides of their heads.

The life span of Sacramento suckers is unknown.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

European Minnow

As their name suggests, European minnows come from waterways of Europe. However that is not the only place in which they may be found. European minnows now inhabit most of northern Asia as well. They are most common in clean, freshwater, fast-flowing rivers, but also inhabit some clean ponds and lakes.

European minnows move through their freshwater homes by the use of their many fins. They propel themselves through the water by the swishing of their caudal, or tail, fins and the paddling of their pectoral and pelvic, or side and upper belly fins. European minnows stay balanced in the water because of their steady dorsal and anal, or back and belly, fins.

These small, freshwater fish usually have dark green scales on their backs and silvery scales on their bellies, but these colors change according to the fish's mood. When European minnows are alarmed they go completely pale. European minnows generally grow to be about three to four inches (7 to 10 centimeters) long. Female European minnows may be much larger than the males, especially during the spawning season when their bellies swell with eggs.

European minnows spawn between April and July. Schools, or large groups, of male and female European minnows mingle together in the water before pairing off and mating. As two European minnows pair off, they swim to the river bottom before spawning. A single female European minnow may release up to 1,000 eggs for a male to fertilize. These fertilized eggs stick to rocks in clumps and develop over a 5 to 10 day incubation period. An incubation period is the growth period between the fertilizing and hatching of eggs. The warmer the water, the shorter the incubation period.

Young European minnows, called fry, live off of the yolk sacs attached to their stomachs for their first few days. As the minnows begin to grow, they learn to find food for themselves. The average fry lives on a diet of microorganisms that float in the water, until it is big enough to attack insects and worms. Eventually, these fry have grown enough to begin eating the diet of fully-grown European minnows.

As omnivores, or animals which eat both meat and plants, European minnows feed on a variety of aquatic, or water-living, animal and plant life. Their diets include freshwater shrimp, worms, insect larvae, flies, mosquitos, and algae.

European minnows were once caught for food in medieval Europe. They were even served as special treats at state banquets. They are still caught for food in some parts of Europe.

Like other fish, European minnows need oxygen to survive. They get the oxygen they need from the water in which they live. European minnows take water into their mouths, keep the oxygen they need, and filter the waste chemicals out through the gills on the sides of their bodies.

The life span of the European minnow is unknown.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Splashing Tetra

Like other South American tetras, splashing tetras are colorful creatures. Their scales are painted with reds and blues. Splashing tetras generally grow to be about one inch (three centimeters) long.

Like other characins, splashing tetras breathe through gills located on the sides of their heads. Unlike humans, who have lungs and are able to breathe oxygen from the air, splashing tetras have to find the oxygen they need from the water in which they live. They take water into their mouths, use the oxygen, and filter the waste chemicals out through their gills.

Splashing tetras live in the freshwater rivers and streams of South America. They swim through these rivers and streams by the use of their many fins. Splashing tetras move their caudal, or tail, fins from side to side to propel themselves through the water. They also paddle through the water with the pectoral, or side, fins located behind their gills. Splashing tetras keep balanced in the water by the use of their dorsal and anal, or back and belly, fins.

As omnivorous fish, they live on a diet of both meat and plant matter. Being very small fish, most of their diet consists of plant algae and other tiny, living organisms.

Splashing tetras have a very interesting mating process. Most characins scatter their eggs throughout the water, but not splashing tetras. These little fish jump out of the water and onto an overhanging leaf to lay their eggs. This commotion is what gives them the name splashing tetras. The process begins with a male leading a female to a chosen leaf about one inch (three centimeters) above the water. The female hops up onto the leaf, lays a few eggs, and then hops back into the water. Once the female is back into the water, the male hops up onto the leaf, fertilizes the eggs, and then, he too, splashes back into the water. This system continues until about 200 eggs have been fertilized. After mating, the female swims away, but the male stays and splashes water onto the eggs while they incubate. The incubation period is the growth period between the fertilizing and hatching of the eggs. After about three days, the young fish, called fry, hatch out of their eggs and fall into the water. Once the fry are in the water, the male leaves them alone to develop on their own.

It is not known how long splashing tetras live.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

False-Eyed Frog

False-eyed frogs are terrestrial, or ground-living, frogs of South America. They are carnivorous, or meat-eating, creatures which live on a diet of insects and other creatures smaller than themselves.

These frogs were given the name false-eyed frogs for the bright blue eyespots on their rumps. When alarmed by unfriendly animals, false-eyed frogs turn their bodies around and point their rumps at their attackers. Many animals, especially reptiles, are frightened away by these displays. However, some animals are not so easily swayed. If the eyespots do not rid the frogs of their attackers, false-eyed frogs resort to producing a very unpleasant smell. Their bodies produce a thick, smelly ooze from near their eyespots. This substance and smell usually force away even the bravest predators.

False-eyed frogs have light-grey skin with beige and brown swirled markings. They generally grow to be between one and six inches (3 and 15 centimeters) long.

It is not known exactly when mating takes place for false-eyed frogs. Sometime after mating, the females gather together on a branch overhanging a pool or pond. This is where they form their foam nests. They deposit their eggs onto this branch along with a substance which they beat into the foam. The eggs develop into tadpoles inside the foam. They then hatch free and slide down into the water where they eventually change, or metamorphose, into their adult forms.

The life span of false-eyed frogs is unknown.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

African Clawed Toad

African clawed toads inhabit many of the rivers and streams of Africa. They spend most of their time in the stagnant, or still, pools of water. These aquatic, or water-living, toads almost never go onto land. Their short front legs help them swim, but are not very useful in walking.

African clawed toads have brownish-gray skin on their backs. Their broad, flat bodies are useful in swimming and digging in the mud. Their large, flattened, webbed hind feet help to propel them through the water, while their long splayed, or separated, fingers and claws help them catch prey. African clawed toads also have small, triangular-shaped heads with eyes that face upward instead of forward. Unlike many frogs and toads which breathe through their skin, African clawed toads breathe through large lungs. They get their oxygen by coming to the surface often for large gulps of air. African clawed toads generally grow to be about five inches (12 centimeters) long.

African clawed toads are carnivorous, which means they eat only meat. They live on a diet of insects. African clawed toads catch their prey by waiting on the bottom of the waterway for something to swim near them. They then run their long fingers through the water and snatch their prey. This type of hunting is called ambush feeding, because it catches the prey by surprise.

Like many other toads, African clawed toads are preyed upon by snakes and birds. They protect themselves by covering their bodies with a smelly slime.

It is not known when African clawed toads mate, but sometime after mating, the females lay their eggs in the water. The eggs develop into free-swimming tadpoles, or young toads with tails. They eventually lose their tails and swim only with their webbed hind feet.

African clawed toads have a life span of about 10 years.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Surinam Toad

Surinam toads are blackish brown with broad, flat bodies and small, triangular heads. Their dark coloring helps them blend with their watery homes. Their hind feet are large, flattened, and webbed, while their front limbs are smaller with long splayed, or separated, fingers. This form helps them swim and find food. Surinam toads generally grow to be about five inches (12 centimeters) long.

The most interesting feature of Surinam toads are their egg-pits. Sometime after mating, the female lay their eggs. Somehow these eggs are transferred, or moved, to the female's back. She keeps the eggs in specialized egg-holding pits for the duration of the incubation period. The incubation period is the growth period between the time of fertilization and the time of hatching. When the young Surinam toads are ready to hatch they jump out of their egg-pits as miniature versions of their parents. These little Surinam toads are called froglets.

Surinam toads are aquatic, or water-living amphibians. They spend their entire lives in the rivers and streams of Amazon and Orinoco river systems of South America.

Surinam toads are carnivorous, or meat-eating, toads. They feed mainly on a diet of insects. Since Surinam toads have very small eyes, they do not see very well. Instead of using their eyes to find food, they hunt with their long outstretched fingers. The tips of their fingers are covered with tiny hairs. As they sweep their fingers through the mud, they pick up many tiny food particles which they then eat. Surinam toads are often preyed upon by snakes and birds.

Surinam toads have a life span of up to about 10 years.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Fringed-Toed Lizard

Fringed-toed lizards inhabit the sand dunes in the deserts of North America. They are insectivores, or animals which eat only insects. Ants are the main source of their diet. When fringed-toed lizards are searching the ground for ants, they are also watching the area for predators. Fringed-toed lizards are preyed upon by snakes and birds of prey. When they are threatened by predators, fringed-toed lizards run quickly away and then dive into the loose, sandy ground to escape.

Fringed-toed lizards have leathery brown skin, which they slough, or shed, regularly throughout their lives. They are long, thin iguanas with long, straight tails and thick, fleshy tongues. They often stick their tongues out of their mouths to examine their surroundings. They pick up tiny chemical signals on their tongues which tell them what kinds of other animals are near. Their legs are thin, but muscular and hold the fronts of their bodies up off the ground. Their toes are long, thin, and splayed, or separated. They are called fringed-toed lizards because their toes are rough on the sides with fringed, or jagged edges. This construction helps them to run quickly across the desert sand. Fringed-toed lizards grow to be about eight inches (20 centimeters) long.

Like other members of the iguanidae family, each fringed-toed lizard has a "third eye" on the top of its head. This is not a real eye, but rather a sensory organ to detect the time of day and cycle of the year. These organs help fringed-toed lizards know when to mate and when to rest.

The mating season for fringed-toed lizards is not known. The females usually lay clutches, or batches, of between 1 and 45 eggs. After laying the eggs, the females have no further contact with their young. When the young lizards are ready to hatch, they break out of their egg shells and survive on their own. The time between the laying and the hatching of the eggs is known as the incubation period.

Fringed-toed lizards have a life span of between 5 and 10 years.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Pronghorn

Pronghorns get their name from the small prongs on the front side of the male's backward curving horns. They have pale tan coats, with white fur on their necks, underbelly, and rump. The male is 4 1/2 feet (1 1/2 meters) from head to tail. He is nearly three feet (one meter) tall at his shoulder and weighs between 103 and 154 pounds (46 to 70 kilograms). His horns usually grow to be about 1 1/2 feet (1/2 meter) long. The female pronghorn is smaller than the male and her horns only grow to be about two inches (5 centimeters) tall. Both males and females shed their horns each year and grow new ones.

Pronghorns wander in herds on the open grassy areas and bushlands of the western United States, southwestern Canada, and northern Mexico. Pronghorns are herbivores. They like to eat herbs, shrubs, grasses, and other plants. They sometimes eat cacti. Pronghorns wander up to 10 miles (16 kilometers) a day in search of food and water. During the winter months, they dig down through the snow and eat the grasses hidden underneath. When water is scarce, they get the moisture they need by eating cactus plants which hold a great deal of water.

Breeding season for the pronghorns begins in the spring, with mating season following in the fall. In the spring, the herds separate according to age and sex. The females stay in small herds and the males go to their breeding territories. Older males often use the same breeding territory every year. The males mark their territories with a scent produced from glands below their ears. Once their territory is marked, they will attempt to attract females for mating. The male will scare off any rival males by letting out a loud bellow or even charge them. Usually the weaker male will back off but sometimes two males will engage in a violent battle. In August and September, the female herds begin wandering through the male territories. Some will stop and mate with the males and others will wander on to the next territory. It is possible for one male to father 15 to 30 percent of all fawns for a given year in a nearby herd. Once they have mated, the gestation period (duration of pregnancy) is eight months. Twins are very common among pronghorns, but sometimes only one fawn in born. Fawns usually weigh between 7 and 8 1/2 pounds (three to four kilograms) at birth. The fawns develop quickly and soon walk and eat along side the mothers. They are usually weaned (no longer given milk by their mother) by the fifth month, sometimes sooner.

Pronghorns are fast runners. A two-day-old fawn can outrun a man and at four days can out sprint a horse. An adult pronghorn has been recorded at running 45 miles per hour (72 kilometers per hour) for four minutes. Pronghorns use their good running abilities to escape predators. When a pronghorn notices danger, it edmits alarm odors from the scent glands in it's rump. This alerts the herd and gives them a chance to run to safety.

When European settlers first arrived, there were between 40 and 50 million pronghorns in North America. By 1920 the number of pronghorns had dropped to 13,000. People became concerned and began protecting the animal and limiting the number that hunters were allowed to kill. Today there are nearly 450,000 pronghorns and they are not in danger of becoming extinct.

Pronghorns have a life span of about 9 to 10 years in the wild and can live as long as 12 years in captivity.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Kingfisher

The adult kingfisher grows to a length of four to eighteen inches (10 to 45 centimeters) and a weight of up to 18 ounces (500 grams). The adult kingfisher has attractive plumage, or feathers. Color combinations are azure blue above and reddish below or light and dark blue, green, brown, white, and black. The bill and legs are vermilion, or bright red, brown, or black. In most species, the male and female are similar in appearance. It has two toes on each foot that are partially webbed.

The kingfisher inhabits the interior of rainforests, woodland areas far from water, desert steppe, grassy savannas, streams, lakeshores, mangroves, seashores, gardens, mountain forests, and oceanic islands. Because the diet of many kingfishers is made up of fish and other aquatic life, it must live in areas where the water is unpolluted.

The kingfisher eats diet of small fish such as minnows and sticklebacks, crustaceans, frogs, and aquatic and land insects. It is possible for a family of six kingfishers to eat up to 100 fish a day.

The nest of the kingfisher is an interesting one. It builds its nest in the side of a riverbank a few feet (about a meter) above the waterline. This keeps the nest safe from predators such as the weasel. Other species use holes in termite nests or in trees. The male kingfisher attempts to attract a female to his nest. If a female shows interest in the male and yet his nest is not complete, she helps him until the nest is finished. But the kingfisher male does not end his courtship once the female has entered his nest. He continues to win her approval by bringing her food. He does this by crouching in front of her, with his wings down by his side, and stretching forward with his offering.

After mating, the female lays two to three white eggs, in the tropical species, and up to 10 eggs for those species in higher latitudes. Both the male and the female incubate the eggs. They do this by gently sitting on the eggs and using the heat from their bodies to keep the eggs warm. The eggs do not hatch if they are not incubated. After an incubation period of 18 to 22 days, the eggs hatch. The young are born without feathers and must stay close to one another for warmth. The young are able to fly after 20 to 30 days.

The life span of the kingfisher is two years.

Here are some representative species of kingfishers: Name Genus/Species African dwarf kingfisher Ceyx lecontei Amazon kingfisher Chloroceryle amazona Beach kingfisher Halcyon saurophaga Belted kingfisher Megaceryke alcyon Common paradise kingfisher Tanysiptera galatea Crested kingfisher Ceryle lugubris Eurasian kingfisher Alcedo atthis Giant kingfisher Megceryle maxima Laughing kookaburra Dacelo gigas Pied kingfisher Ceryle rudis Ringed kingfisher Megaceryle torquata Ruddy kingfisher Halcyon coromanda Stork-billed kingfisher Halcyon capensis Tuamata kingfisher Halcyon gambieri Variable dwarf kingfisher Ceyx lepidus

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Wire-Tailed Manakin

The male wire-tailed manakin has an interesting color combination. Its plumage, or feathering, is black with patches of red, orange, yellow, blue, and white. The female wire-tailed manakin is olive-green. The adult wire-tailed manakin grows to a length of 3 1/2 to 7 1/2 inches (9 to 19 centimeters) and a weight of 2/3 to 3/4 of an ounce (10 to 25 grams). The wire-tailed manakin has a short, dull bill and large head.

The wire-tailed manakin inhabits the tropical forest. Here it feeds on small fruit and insects which it finds along the forest floor. The wire-tailed manakin often feeds with other members of its species. The male and female wire-tailed manakin do not form a pair outside of the breeding season.

The courtship ritual of the wire-tailed manakin is interesting. Two males sit side by side on a perch or branch. The dominant or stronger of the two males begins his song less than a second before the song of the other male. To the human ear, the song sounds as though it is coming from one bird, but the female knows she is being courted by two males. When the female approaches the two males, they immediately fly down to a lower perch giving her a better look at them. They begin jumping up and down in a see-saw manner. When one jumps up, the other remains down. During the male jump, the male lets out a nasal sounding call and the female may begin to approach the perch. The two males then begin a new series of jumps. The male nearest the female jumps from the perch, moves back in the air and lands behind the second male. The second male moves forward, jumps in the air, flutters for a few seconds and lands behind the first male. This movement is called the "Catherine Wheel" as the males form a wheel-like motion in front of the female.

As the "Catherine Wheel" continues, the movements of the males become more rapid and their calls more excited. This continues until the stronger of the two males lets out two very sharp cries and the weaker male flies off. The stronger male now has the complete attention of the female. He flies back and forth over the perch, pausing to display his feathering. He may fly to a nearby perch, pause for a few seconds and then, with a quick flutter of his wings, return to the display perch. If the female is there waiting for him then the two mate.

After mating, the female lays two eggs. The eggs are white or buff with brown or blackish markings. She incubates the eggs for 17 to 21 days. During this time, the female sits on the eggs and uses the heat from her body to warm them. After hatching, the young enter a two-week nestling period. During this time, their flight feathers develop and they depend on their mother for food and protection.

The voice of the wire-tailed manakin is described as a mixture of sharp whistles, trills, and buzzing notes. The bird does not have a song as do other birds. Some species make loud machine-like sounds with their wing feathers.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals

Double Trouble

Two heads are not better than one! That's what scientists have to say about a two-headed turtle that was discovered in Cuba, a country near Florida.

According to scientists, the turtle's rare condition will hurt its chances of survival. That's because having two brains slows the animal's movement, causes problems with decision-making, and prevents the turtle from being able to detect enemies.

Source: Scholastic SuperScience, 2006

Some Great Moments in the History of Space Exploration

1961
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth on April 12, 1961. His famous flight lasted 118 minutes.

1969
On July 20, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. As he stepped onto the moon he said, "That's one small step for man, one' giant leap for mankind."

1971
Russia's Salyut 1, the first space station in history, reached orbit on April 19, 1971. Cosmonauts visited the space station for short periods of time.

1981
On April 12, 1981, Columbia became the first space shuttle to blast into orbit: It was launched by the United States.

1983
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on June. 18, 1983. She flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

1996
In 1996, NASA and the Russian, European, Japanese, and Canadian space agencies agreed to join forces to build the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is the first multi nation space station, and is used to conduct research.

2004
On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first manned spacecraft to be built and launched into space without help from a government.

Source: Scholastic SuperScience

Night Fliers

Night is falling in a forest in French Guiana (gee-AH-nah), a country in South America. Nancy Simmons, a zoologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, hikes along a trail. She opens a black net attached to long wooden poles,

Night Fliers (Photo)

Nancy Simmons holds a bat that she caught in her net, shown above, in French Guiana.

As the sun sets, night-flying bats begin to emerge from their sleeping roosts. As they swoop past Simmons — THWAP! — some get caught in her net. Simmons carefully starts untangling the bats. She works through the night, examining each one before setting it aside in a cotton bag. At the end of the night, she decides which bats to release and which to take to her camp to study.

Through many long nights of work, Simmons has captured 78 different bat species within only a small circle of the forest. Each species has its own traits that help it survive.

But French Guiana isn't the only place swarming with bats. These animals are found on every continent except Antarctica. In fact, nearly one fifth of all the species of mammals on Earth are bats.

Now, scientists are trying to learn how all these different types of bats are related. Follow along as Simmons discusses her quest to build a more complete bat family tree.

Is it difficult to study bats?
Yes! Bats are nocturnal, so we have to work during the night. Studying little animals that fly at night is difficult because you can't see them easily. That's why we use nets to catch them.

Once you have captured a bat, what do you do?
I study the structure of the bat's body. This ranges from what the bat looks like on the outside to what it looks like on the inside. For instance, I study color patterns on the bat's fur as well as the form of the bat's skull and the shape of its teeth.

What do these traits tell you?
You can learn a lot about how an animal lives by studying the structure of its body. For instance, bats that eat insects need to pierce the insect's hard outer skeleton. These bats usually have sharp, pointy teeth. On the other hand, a bat that eats fruit needs to crush the fruit to get out the juices. So fruit-eating bats tend to have broader, less pointy teeth — more like a human's.

So there are lots of different kinds of bats?
There are more than 1,100 species. They range from fruit-eating bats to insectivores. And they come in different sizes too. A large fruit-eating bat called the flying fox has a wingspan of up to 2 meters (6 feet). At the other extreme, the bumblebee bat is the world's smallest bat. It's smaller than my little finger, and its wingspan is about 8 centimeters (3 inches). These bats eat tiny insects. And there are all kinds of bats in between.

If each species of bat is different, how are they related to each other?
That's one of the big mysteries. Most scientists now recognize 18 or 19 bat families. Bat species are grouped into these families based on traits that the species share. For example, all the bat species in one family may have similar teeth, skulls, wing forms, and eat the same type of food. But scientists have not yet agreed how bats in each of these families are related to each other.

How will you sort it out?
We are gathering information on the traits of bat species from all over the world. By compiling all of this information, we hope to find links among the different bat families. Then, we'll be able to build a better bat family tree.

Why is it so important to learn about bats?
Studying bats will help us protect them. There are many species of bats that are endangered. By gathering information about bats, we will be able to determine which species are at risk and how to help them survive.

Why must we protect bats?
Bats play a key role in many environments. For instance, one of the important things that some bats do is feast on corn ear worms. These insects feed on many of the plants that are grown for food. If bats were wiped out, corn ear worms could grow out of control and destroy the plants we rely on for food.

To discover more about bats, tour the Science Explorations Web site. Be sure to take part in the live question-and-answer session with bat specialist Nancy Simmons. http://www.scholastic.com/bats/

Words to Know
zoologist — scientist who studies animals

trait — a characteristic

mammal — a warm-blooded animal that can produce milk, has a backbone, and has fur or hair

family — a group of animals or plants that are related nocturnal — active at night

insectivore — an animal or plant that feeds mainly on insects

endangered — at risk of no longer existing

By: Norlander, Britt, Scholastic SuperScience, 2006

Ships Ahoy

"Captain" Rob McDonald loves to study Viking ships so much that he decided to build one of his own-using 15 million ice cream sticks! McDonald spent two years gluing the sticks together until he finally had a boat he could sail.

Like Viking ships from the past, McDonald's boat has a flat keel, or bottom, that barely dips below the water's surface. That means less water pushes against the keel. And because less water is pushing against the boat, it experiences little drag (a stowing force) as it sails.

So did McDonald really eat 15 million ice cream treats to get the sticks? No! Most were donated by an ice cream company, while others were sent to him by children from around the world.

Source: Scholastic SuperScience

Toothy Find

Humans have been going to the dentist longer than scientists had imagined. It turns out the art of tooth-drilling was practiced about 9,000 years ago.

Scientists recently made the discovery after digging up nine ancient skulls with teeth. Some of the teeth had tiny holes drilled into them, probably to remove cavities. "We could see the ridges along the sides of the holes that were made by drills," says David Frayer, a scientist at the University of Kansas who studied the teeth.

Bee's Air Control

Some bees have a trick that helps them zip quickly from flower to flower. Stacey Combes, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, recently discovered that the secret lies in the bees' legs.

As some bees begin to fly forward, they dangle their hind legs below their bodies, says Combes. The wind rushing toward the bee pushes against the dangling legs. This push helps the bee tilt its body downward. With its body tilted, the bee can produce lift, or the same force that moves a kite in the sky. This lift helps the fuzzy insect flap its way forward to the next flower.

Did You Know?
Bees can beat their wings 11,000 times in just one minute! These insects, however, are not fast fliers compared to other insects. A bee's average flight speed is 24 kilometers (15 miles) per hour.

Amazing Facts Everyone Should Know

The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.

"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

"Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

You can't kill yourself by holding your breath

There is a city called Rome on every continent.

The skeleton of Jeremy Bentham is present at all important meetings of the University of London

Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!

The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!

One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."

Coca-Cola would be green if colouring werent added to it.

More people are killed each year from bees than from snakes.

The average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words.

More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!

The six official languages of the United Nations are:
English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.

You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult, you only have 206.

Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds

Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not

Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!

The average person laughs 10 times a day!

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain

Is global warming to blame for the intensity of recent Atlantic hurricanes?

While experts debate that question, they agree that more devastating tempests are headed our way

PLUNGING THROUGH A STAND OF POISON IVY, Jeffrey Donnelly wades into Oyster Pond and begins assembling a crude raft. He and two colleagues lash a piece of plywood on top of two aluminum canoes and push off, paddling their makeshift catamaran toward a fringe of scrub bordering this brackish pond in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Donnelly whips out a hand-held GPS receiver and takes a reading. "This is the place," he says. After setting out a web of anchors, the team settles into hours of monotonous labor. They push long pipes through nearly 25 feet of tea-colored water into thick layers of sediment below. The moans of foghorns drift in from Vineyard Sound, and mist rises and falls like a scrim.

"One, two, three!" Donnelly brings up a five-foot-long core of sediment encased in transparent plastic. "Look!" he whoops, pointing to a thick deposit of yellowish sand bracketed by black-brown pond muck. "That's a hurricane!"

Donnelly, a geologist and paleoclimatologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has been prowling the lakes and marshes that dot the New England coastline for nearly a decade, assembling a record of hurricanes going back hundreds of years. The record takes the form of sand washed inland by monstrous storm surges.

What Donnelly is staring at now may be the gritty calling card of the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, which lifted up a dome of water 20 feet high as it slashed its way from Long Island to Cape Cod with Katrina-class force, leaving at least 680 people dead and tens of thousands homeless. Or perhaps the sand is from the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635, which ravaged the fledgling Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, or the Great September Gale of 1815, which put Providence, Rhode Island, under more than ten feet of water.

Hurricanes that intense may not threaten Northeastern states as often as they do Louisiana, Florida or the Carolinas, but they aren't as rare as the people living along the coastline from Virginia to Maine might like to think. The sediment cores Donnelly has collected indicate that devastating hurricanes have slammed into the Northeastern seaboard at least nine times in the past seven centuries.

Understanding hurricane history takes on new urgency in the wake of the worst hurricane season on record. In 2005, the Atlantic basin produced more tropical storms, 28, and more full-blown hurricanes, 15, than any year in at least the past half century. Last year, memorable for its four major hurricanes, could also lay claim to three of the six strongest storms on record. And as bad as it was, the 2005 season was just an exclamation point in a decade-long hurricane onslaught, which will end--well, scientists can't agree on when, or even whether, it will end.

That's because late last year, around the time Hurricane Katrina stormed ashore in Mississippi, climate scientists were engaged in an urgent debate. According to one group, the increasing intensity of Atlantic storms comes from a natural climate cycle that causes sea surface temperatures to rise and fall every 20 to 40 years. According to another group, it comes from human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. (So far, no one has linked the number of hurricanes to global warming.) In the first scenario, the fever in the Atlantic might not break for another decade or more; in the second, it might last for the rest of this century and beyond.

Evidence from sediment cores collected by Donnelly and others hints that long before industrial activity began pumping the air full of heat-trapping gases, particularly carbon dioxide, naturally occurring climate shifts influenced hurricane activity, either by changing wind patterns that steer hurricanes toward or away from land, or by altering the frequency and intensity of the storms themselves. Cores collected by Louisiana State University geographer Kam-biu Liu from four Gulf Coast lakes and marshes, for example, show that major hurricanes struck that region three to five times more often between 3,500 and 1,000 years ago than in the ten centuries since. Donnelly, for his part, has pieced together a similar record in Vieques, Puerto Rico; there, the active hurricane pattern starts 2,500 years ago and ends 1,500 years later. But, Donnelly cautions, these are just a few scattered jigsaw pieces. "We have to collect a lot more pieces in order to put the puzzle together." And that is why he's out in the middle of Oyster Pond, coring his way through time.

I AM TO MEET DONNELLY the next morning at his lab. As a strong thunderstorm rolls through, Donnelly pedals in on a mountain bike looking like a sopping wet Power Ranger. Inside a cavernous room, chockablock with tools, the first core is standing on end, giving the slurry in the topmost foot or so a chance to settle. On the floor lie two long cores in aluminum pipes.

Using a hacksaw, Donnelly cuts the cores into shorter lengths, then uses a table saw to slice them in half lengthwise. Water puddles onto the floor, and we smell rotten eggs--hydrogen sulfide produced by microbes that live within the pond's deep, dark pockets of organic debris. Donnelly opens one of the cores, and I can see a sequence of sandy strips, the spoor of ancient hurricanes.

Later Donnelly takes me into a walk-in refrigerator filled with core samples from some 60 sites stretching from the Yucatán Peninsula to the Lesser Antilles and from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod. In a few years, he says, he hopes to have enough data to put the present-and the future--into broader perspective. But he can't do that yet.

The control box for the earth's climate machine, he muses, has many knobs, and scientists are only beginning to identify the ones that dial the awesome power of hurricanes up and down. "The point is, we know the knobs are there," Donnelly says, and if the natural system can tweak them, so can human beings. It's a thought I hold onto as I prepare to dive into the maelstrom of the debate over hurricanes and global warming.

WHEN CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS arrived in the New World, he heard its native inhabitants speak fearfully of the storm god they called Jurakan. On his fourth voyage, in 1502, the Italian explorer and his ships weathered a hurricane that destroyed much of the settlement his brother Bartolomeo had founded six years earlier at Nueva Isabela, later rechristened Santo Domingo. "The storm was terrible," Christopher Columbus wrote, "and on that night the ships were parted from me." His ships reassembled afterward, but some 25 other ships in a fleet launched by the governor of Hispaniola foundered in wind-frenzied seas.

The scientific study of hurricanes leapt forward in 1831, when William Redfield, a self-taught meteorologist trained as a saddler, finally grasped their nature. In an article published in the American Journal of Science, Redfield described patterns of damage wrought by a powerful storm that had swept through New England ten years earlier, after passing directly over the New York metropolitan area. In one part of Connecticut, he noted, trees appeared to have been blown down by southwesterly winds; in another part, by winds from nearly the opposite direction. Redfield nailed down the rotary nature of a hurricane's eye wall, a churning cylinder of wind circling a calm center.

A systematic effort to understand these storms dates to 1898, when President William McKinley directed what was then the U.S. Weather Bureau to expand its rudimentary network for hurricane warnings. The impetus was the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. "I am more afraid of a . . . hurricane than I am of the entire Spanish Navy," McKinley reportedly said. In 1886, a record seven hurricanes hit the U.S. coast; one completely destroyed the thriving port city of Indianola, Texas. The year 1893 was almost as bad; six hurricanes hit the United States. One came ashore near Savannah, Georgia, overwhelming the low-lying Sea Islands off the South Carolina coast; another devastated the island of Cheniere Caminanda off the Louisiana coast. In those two storms alone, 4,500 lives were lost.

Over the next half century, forecasters relying on observations of winds and pressure taken by an expanding network of ship and ground-based weather stations struggled to provide hurricane warnings to vulnerable populations. They often failed. In 1900, a hurricane burst upon the unsuspecting citizens of Galveston, Texas, killing 8,000 to 12,000. In 1938, people stood along Long Island's Westhampton Beach marveling at what they thought was an approaching fog bank, only to realize, too late, that it was the storm-seized ocean heaving up. Twenty-nine people died.

World War II propelled hurricane science into the modern era. In July 1943, Army Air Forces pilot Joseph B. Duckworth--on a dare, it is said--flew through the eye of a hurricane as it neared the Texas coast; he did it again a couple of hours later as weather officer First Lt. William Jones-Burdick took measurements at 7,000 feet, inside the storm's eye. In February 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the first of a series of hurricane missions by Army and Navy aircraft. Later that year, military planes gave chase to a storm that came to be known as the Great Atlantic Hurricane, following it as it roared up the East Coast, taking aim at New England. All along the storm's path, radio newscasters blared out warnings. Of 390 deaths, all but 46 occurred at sea.

After the war, the U.S. Weather Bureau--renamed the National Weather Service in 1970--established a formal program of hurricane research. To study these formidable whirlwinds, flights continued to transport scientists through turbulent eye walls and the eerie stillness of the eye itself. In the 1960s, earth-orbiting satellites began providing even higher observational platforms. Since then, forecasters have progressively narrowed "the cone of uncertainty," the teardrop-shaped blob that surrounds their best predictions of where a hurricane is likely to go. At 48 hours, track forecasts are now "off" on average by just 118 miles; at 24 hours, by less than 65 miles, both significant improvements over 15 years ago. Despite these advances, hurricanes undergo sudden surges in power that are easy to spot once they start but dauntingly hard to predict.

LIKE A GIANT BUMBLEBEE, the P-3 Orion buzzes in from Biscayne Bay, dipping a wing as it passes the compact concrete building that houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Miami-based Hurricane Research Division. The plane, a modification of the submarine hunters built in the 1960s for the U.S. Navy, is one of two that fly scientists in and out of some of the planet's mightiest storms, including Hurricane Katrina as its engorged eye neared landfall.

Among those on that flight was research meteorologist Stanley Goldenberg, whose third-floor office looks, appropriately enough, as if a hurricane just blew through it. Goldenberg is well acquainted with hurricanes blowing though. In 1992 Hurricane Andrew demolished his family's rented house in Perrine, Florida. A computer-enhanced satellite image of the hurricane, with its monstrous circular eye wall, now hangs on his wall. "The bagel that ate Miami," he quips.

Hurricanes belong to a broad class of storms known as tropical cyclones, which also occur in the Indian and Pacific oceans. They do not develop spontaneously but grow out of other disturbances. In the Atlantic, most evolve out of "African waves," unstable kinks in the atmosphere that spiral off the West African coast and head toward Central America. Along the way, these atmospheric waves generate ephemeral clusters of thunderstorm-producing clouds that can seed hurricanes.

At the same time, hurricanes are much more than collections of thunderstorms writ large; they stand out amid the general chaos of the atmosphere as coherent, long-lasting structures, with cloud towers that soar up to the stratosphere, ten miles above the earth's surface. The rise of warm, moist air through the chimney-like eye pumps energy into the developing storm.

Ocean warmth is essential--hurricanes do not readily form over waters cooler than about 79 degrees Fahrenheit-but the right temperature is not enough. Atmospheric conditions, such as dry air wafting off the Sahara, can cause hurricanes--along with their weaker cousins, tropical storms and depressions--to falter, weaken and die. Vertical wind shear-the difference between wind speed and direction near the ocean's surface and at 40,000 feet--is another formidable foe. Among the known regulators of vertical wind shear is El Niño, the climate upheaval that alters weather patterns around the globe every two to seven years. During El Niño years, as Colorado State University tropical meteorologist William Gray was first to appreciate, high-level westerlies over the tropical North Atlantic increase in strength, ripping developing storms apart. In 1992 and 1997, both El Niño years, only six and seven tropical storms formed, respectively, or a quarter of the number in 2005. (Then again, Goldenberg observes, the devastating Hurricane Andrew was one of the 1992 storms.)

For years, Goldenberg notes, scientists have been pondering why the number of Atlantic hurricanes varies from year to year, even though roughly the same number of African waves move out over the ocean each year. What accounts for the difference? El Niño explains some, but not all, of the variance. By combing through the historical record and more recent recordings from scientific instruments, Gray, along with Goldenberg's colleague Christopher Landsea, has found another pattern: hurricanes in the Atlantic march to a slowly alternating rhythm, with the 1880s and 1890s very active, the early 1900s comparatively quiescent, the 1930s through 1960s again active, 1970 through 1994 quiescent again.

Five years ago, a possible explanation for this pattern emerged. Goldenberg shows me a graph that plots the number of major hurricanes--Category 3 or higher--that spin up each year in the Atlantic's main hurricane development region, a 3,500-mile-long band of balmy water between the coast of Senegal and the Caribbean basin. Between 1970 and 1994, this region produced, on average, less than half the number of major hurricanes that it did in the decades before and after. Goldenberg then hands me a second graph. It shows a series of jagged humps representing the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation, a swing of sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic that occurs every 20 to 40 years. The two graphs seem to coincide, with the number of major hurricanes falling as waters cooled around 1970 and rising as they began warming about 1995.

Scientists have yet to nail down the cause of the multi-decadal oscillation, but these striking ups and downs in surface temperatures appear to correlate--somehow--with hurricane activity. "You can't just heat up the ocean by 1 degree Celsius and Pow! Pow! Pow! get more hurricanes," says Goldenberg. More critical, he thinks, are atmospheric changes--more or less wind shear, for example--that accompany these temperature shifts, but what comes first? "We still don't know which is the chicken and which is the egg," he says. "The ocean tends to warm when the trade winds get weaker, and the trade winds can get weaker if the ocean warms. Will we lock it down? Maybe someday."

After leaving Goldenberg's office, I drive across town to the National Hurricane Center, a low-lying bunker whose roof bristles with satellite dishes and antennae. Inside, as computer monitors rerun satellite images of Katrina's savage waltz toward the Gulf Coast, top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials have gathered to announce the agency's best estimate of how many tropical storms and hurricanes are likely to form in 2006. It's not an encouraging forecast: eight to ten hurricanes, fewer than last year, but four to six of them Category 3s or higher. (Last year there were seven.) The predictions are based, in large part, on the multi-decadal oscillation. "The researchers are telling us that we're in a very active period for major hurricanes," says Max Mayfield, the center's director, "one that will probably last at least 10 to 20 more years."

FROM HIS 16TH-FLOOR OFFICE on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus, meteorologist Kerry Emanuel commands a crow's-nest view of the esplanade along the Charles River, the dividing line between Boston and Cambridge. In 1985, he remembers, the windows wept with spray blown up from the river by Hurricane Gloria, a moderately strong storm that, nonetheless, made a mess of the Northeast. A painting by a Haitian artist that shows people and animals drowning in a storm surge hangs on a wall near his desk.

Last year, right after Katrina hit, Emanuel found himself in the media spotlight. A few weeks earlier he had published evidence in the journal Nature that hurricanes in both the North Atlantic and the western basin of the North Pacific had undergone a startling increase in power over the past half century The increase showed up in both the duration of the storms and their peak wind speeds. The cause, Emanuel suggested, was a rise in tropical sea surface temperatures due, at least in part, to the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Even scientists who would expect hurricanes to intensify in response to greenhouse warming were stunned by Emanuel's suggestion that global warming has already had a profound effect. Computer simulations of a warming world, notes climate modeler Thomas Knutson of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, suggest that by the end of this century, peak sustained wind speeds could increase by around 7 percent, enough to push some Category 4 hurricanes into Category 5 territory But Knutson, along with many others, did not think that the intensity rise would be detectable so soon--or that it might be five or more times larger than he and his colleagues anticipated. "These are huge changes," Knutson says of Emanuel's results. "If true, they may have serious implications. First we need to find out if they're true."

Emanuel's paper raised the ante in what has grown into an extremely intense debate over the sensitivity of the earth's most violent storms to gases spewed into the atmosphere by human beings. In the months since the dispute began, dozens of other studies have been reported, some of which support Emanuel's conclusions, others of which call them into question. The debate has grown so impassioned that some former colleagues now scarcely speak to one another.

As Emanuel sees it, sea surface temperatures are important because they tweak a fundamental dynamic that controls hurricane intensity. After all, storm clouds form because the ocean's heat warms the overlying air and pumps it full of moisture. And the warmer the air is, the more vigorous its rise. For their part, Emanuel's critics, Goldenberg and Landsea among them, don't utterly discount ocean warmth. They just put far more emphasis on other factors like wind shear as the main determinants of storm intensity.

Sorting out the differences between the two camps is not easy Goldenberg and Landsea, for example, grant that greenhouse gases may be contributing to a slight long-term rise in sea surface temperatures. They just don't think the effect is significant enough to trump the natural swings of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation. "It's not simply, yes or no, is global warming having an effect?" says Landsea, the science and operations officer for the National Hurricane Center. "It's how much of an effect is it having?"

Emanuel, while respectful of Landsea, is not backing down. In fact, he has now stirred up a second storm. "If you'd asked me a year ago," Emanuel says, "I would have probably told you that a lot of the variability in hurricane activity was due to the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation. I've now come to the conclusion that the oscillation either d