Smithsonian articles from February 2006

Smithsonian archives from February 2006

Worlds apart: change and constancy on sceptered isles.
February 1, 2006... GORDON CHAPLIN grew up in the Bahamas on an island across a narrow channel from Nassau. He knew it as Hog Island, named for the pig farms that once had been its only industry. Today, millions of tourists know Chaplin's boyhood home as Paradise...

Please do touch: at the Insect Zoo, you can crawl through a termite mound and hold a hissing Madagascan cockroach. Or not.(O. Orkin Insect Zoo)
February 1, 2006... "INSECTS won't inherit the earth; they own it now," observes entomologist Thomas Eisner. Indeed, they have been running our terrestrial ecosystems for 325 million years. Insects are by far the most prevalent form of animal life on the...

Thanks aplenty.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2006... Readers respond to the December issue: "Native Intelligence," on Squanto and the Pilgrims, elicited several letters questioning whether the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving feast in 1621 was the first. David Ellis of Fredricksburg, Virginia, writes...

Contentious questions.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2006... "STEM CELL PIONEERS" perpetuates a common misrepresentation about human embryo research. Many argue that research requiring the death or manipulation of in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos is justified, because 400,000 are available and, as...

Helping the Kurds.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2006... ANDREW COCKBURN omits certain facts about Turkey's critical role in the protection of Kurds ("Iraq's Resilient Minority") facing counterattacks from the government in Baghdad in 1991. Turkey provided air bases, enabling Allied planes to patrol...

A soldier's story: after more than a decade of warfare, Joseph Duo is finding that peace takes some getting used to.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
February 1, 2006... JULY 20, 2003: another day in Liberia's 14-year civil war. Rebels were closing in on the government of President Charles Taylor. From a bridge leading into Monrovia, the capital, a band of child soldiers in Taylor's army were returning...

Long row to hoe.(land use)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... HUMANITY'S NEED FOR FOOD IS GOBBLING UP TERRA FIRMA. NEARLY 40 PERCENT OF THE EARTH'S LANDMASS IS NOW USED TO GROW CROPS OR GRAZE ANIMALS, COMPARED WITH ABOUT 25 PERCENT A CENTURY AGO. IN A NEW STUDY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN RESEARCHERS MERGED...

Huge hangover?(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(inebriated elephants)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Legend has it African elephants become inebriated eating fermented fruit from the marula tree. But University of Bristol scientists say that the three-ton beasts can't possibly eat enough of the fruit to get tipsy. Instead, they may run amok...

Observed.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Archaeopteryx skeleton discovered)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... NAME: Archaeopteryx (ark-ee-OP-ter-ix) NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: The earliest known bird, from about 150 million years ago. RECENTLY SEEN IN: A nearly complete skeleton discovered in Germany. AND NOW IT TELLS US: The skeleton shows that...

Swaddled.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... Most squid bear their young without much fuss--the female lays fertilized eggs on the seafloor and swims away. But a Gonatus onyx female hugs her mass of 2,000 to 3,000 eggs (above) until they hatch. Juvenile G. onyx are abundant in shallow...

Best intentions.(LIFE AS WE KNOW IT)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... AT MANY FLORIDA BEACHES WHERE SEA TURTLES NEST, PEOPLE TRAP AND REMOVE RACCOONS, WHICH FEAST ON TURTLE EGGS. BUT THE STRATEGY MAY NOT WORK, ACCORDING TO NEW RESEARCH BY YALE'S BRANDON BARTON. HE MEASURED ANIMAL TRAFFIC AT FOUR WILDLIFE RESERVES...

Medical sleuth: to prosecutors, it was child abuse--an Amish baby covered in bruises. But Dr. D. Holmes Morton had other ideas.(PEOPLE FILE)(glutaric aciduria type 1)
February 1, 2006... IT WAS EVERY PARENT'S nightmare: a few days before Christmas 1999, Elizabeth and Samuel Glick, Old Order Amish dairy farmers in rural Dornsife, Pennsylvania, an hour's drive north of Harrisburg, found their youngest child, 4-month-old Sara...

Brains conquer beauty: scientists break code to create perfect gemstones with even more fire and brilliance than mined diamonds.(Advertisement)
February 1, 2006... There is little doubt that a natural mined diamond of top quality is one of the world's most magnificent gems. It is much coveted for its exquisite beauty, but the simple truth is that diamonds are just compressed crystallized carbon. The...

8 out of 10 Americans don't get enough sleep*. The other 2 probably have a Tempur-Pedic.(Weightless Sleep mattress)(Brief Article)(Advertisement)
February 1, 2006... Finally, a comfortable night's sleep You know how it goes: toss, turn, flip the pillow, toss, turn, toss. You could spend half the night just trying to fall asleep. Not so with Tempur-Pedic's Weightless Sleep[TM] mattress. Spend the night...

Rare hoard of 100-year-old U.S. gold coins released to public historic U.S. gold on sale.(Advertisement)
February 1, 2006... Just discovered hoard of U.S. $10 Gold Liberty Coins Now Available Our buyers just discovered one of the most significant European Bank hoards of U.S. gold in years. They secured 1,170 magnificent U.S. gold coins guaranteed to be over 100...

Upper class just got lower priced: finally, luxury built for value--not for false status.(Stauer Magnificat)(Advertisement)
February 1, 2006... Only a few of us are born with silver spoons in our mouths. And until Stauer came along, you needed an inheritance to buy a timepiece with class and refinement. That has suddenly changed. The Stauer Magnificat brings the impeccable quality and...

Labors of love: half a century ago in Georgia, a photographer captured an African-American midwife's tender touch. Now, for the first time, those photographs can be seen.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BETOND)(Smithsonian Institution. Anacostia Neighborhood Museum, Robert Galbraith )
February 1, 2006... THE WOMAN rests her hand on the mother's belly, glancing at the clock on the fireplace mantel as she times the contractions. In another photograph, she's clothed in a flowing white gown and soothes a mother in the throes of giving birth. A...

King of hearts.(Jim Dine)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... KING OF HEARTS No other artist has provided more target practice for cupid's Valentine's Day arrow than Jim Dine. Since the mid-1960s, he has painted and drawn hearts, sculpted hearts in plaster, bronze and steel, and constructed hearts out of...

Tony paints the town: the 79-year-old pop star wins acclaim for his unsung artistry.(Interview)
February 1, 2006... LEGENDARY CROONER Tony Bennett, who has collected 12 Grammys, has now been recognized by the Smithsonian--for painting. This past September, while visiting the Smithsonian American Art Museum to talk about a favorite cause--art education in...

Who's counting?(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)(Tai Shan, panda cub)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2006... 45,000 PEOPLE VISITED TAI SHAN AT THE NATIONAL ZOO THIS PAST YEAR. THE BELOVED PANDA CUB WAS 5 MONTHS OLD WHEN HE VENTURED OUTDOORS THE FIRST TIME DECEMBER 22 (BELOW). VISIT THE SMITHSONIAN For a free Associates' planning packet, call...

This month in history: February anniversaries--momentous or merely memorable.(Chronology)
February 1, 2006... 65 YEARS AGO: ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY While trying to create a refrigerant, chemist Roy Plunkett produces a fortuitous find later called Teflon, which he patents February 4, 1941. It is used to make valves employed in building the first atom...

A return to the reefs: with the world's coral reefs in crisis, the author's childhood memories guide a far-reaching study of the problem in the Bahamas.
February 1, 2006... I couldn't have been more than 5 years old when my father fitted me with my first pair of swim goggles. I waded out from the beach until the silky cool water reached my chest, and then I bent my knees until my head was below the surface. As if...

Forgotten forest: photographic plates discovered in a dusty shed offer an astonishing look at life in the American woods more than a century ago.
February 1, 2006... LOIS BARDEN was rummaging through a toolshed near Rochester, New York, when her eyes fell on a grime-coated crate half hidden in a dark corner. Glancing into it, Barden saw dozens of discarded windowpanes. Or were they? She held one up to the...

Resurrecting Pompeii: a new exhibition brings the doomed residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum vividly to life.
February 1, 2006... DAYBREAK, AUGUST 25, A.D. 79. Under a lurid and sulfurous sky, a family of four struggles down an alley filled with pumice stones, desperately trying to escape the beleaguered city of Pompeii. Leading the way is a middle-aged man carrying gold...

Love to travel? Love to learn? Take the Smithsonian on your next trip.(Advertisement)
February 1, 2006... U.S. JOURNEYS MYSTERIES OF CHACO CANYON AND MESA VERDE May 4-9 and September 19-24, 2006 Explore the legends and archaeology of the Ancient Pueblo Indians who thrived in the pueblos of Chaco Canyon and in the cliff dwellings of...

In John they trust: South Pacific villagers worship a mysterious American they call John Frum--believing he'll one day shower their remote island with riches.(Vanuatu)
February 1, 2006... IN THE MORNING HEAT on a tropical island halfway across the world from the United States, several dark-skinned men--clad in what look to be U.S. Army uniforms--appear on a mound overlooking a bamboo-hut village. One reverently carries Old...

Hook, line & television: ice fishing on Minnesota's Mille Lacs Lake offers all the comforts of home.
February 1, 2006... EVERY YEAR THE CALL GOES OUT: the ice is safe. Open water has turned into prime real estate, and villages of tiny shacks pop up overnight. Thus ice-fishing season opens in Minnesota, home of the nation's icebox, where carpaccio is still made...

In search of the roots of genius Mozart: on the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, the author scours Salzburg and Vienna for traces of the master's mischievous spirit.(Biography)
February 1, 2006... IT IS THE KIND OF JOKE Mozart would have appreciated. Like the wit in some of his operas, it is unexpected, mischievous, deflating, childish, even a bit humiliating: it can be found on the outskirts of Salzburg, Austria, at Hellbrunn, an...

A lesson in hate: how an Egyptian student came to study 1950s America and left determined to wage Holy War.(Sayyid Qutb)
February 1, 2006... BEFORE SAYYID QUTB became a leading theorist of violent jihad, he was a little-known Egyptian writer sojourning in the United States, where he attended a small teachers college on the Great Plains. Greeley, Colorado, circa 1950 was the last...

Every Book its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World.(Book Review)
February 1, 2006... EVERY BOOK ITS READER: THE POWER OF THE PRINTED WORD TO STIR THE WORLD NICHOLAS A. BASBANES HARPERCOLLINS, $29.95 WHETHER in a garret or a sitting room, readers across the centuries have found their life's work--and altered the...

Bilingual by breakfast: only one thing stood between the author and the hojaldras of her desire.(THE LAST PAGE)
February 1, 2006... THE CONCRETE-AND-TILE house in which I'm living in Boquete, Panama, is often filled with echoes of the indecipherable chatter from the restaurant next door. It is patronized by men in evenly pleated Panamanian shirts and women in flower print...