It was late 1956, and millions of Americans sat transfixed before their televisions, watching two men locked in soundproof booths pull facts, names, and dates out of their memories to answer questions worth thousands of dollars. One competitor was Charles Van Doren, a handsome 32- year-old English instructor at Columbia University. The other was unglamorous, […] Read more

It was late 1956, and millions of Americans sat transfixed before their televisions, watching two men locked in soundproof booths pull facts, names, and dates out of their memories to answer questions worth thousands of dollars. One competitor was Charles Van Doren, a handsome 32- year-old English instructor at Columbia University. The other was unglamorous, […] Read more

Radiation is a form of energy, released in waves called “electromagnetic waves.” The different types of electromagnetic energy fall into categories according to the size of their wavelengths. Radiation includes gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet rays, microwaves, visible light, infrared light, radio waves, television broadcast waves, and radar waves. Radiation at the lower end, gamma rays […] Read more

For many children in New York, Christmas meant the yearly extravaganza at Radio City Music Hall. For some kids in other areas, the holiday season meant Santa Claus and decorated fir trees. But in New York, it was Radio City … the huge resplendent hall, the Rockettes, and the reenactment of the Living Nativity scene, […] Read more

The world’s largest tropical rainforests are in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Rainforests are characterized by high rainfall. Tropical rainforests receive from 60 to 160 inches of precipitation that is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year. The combination of constant warmth and abundant moisture makes the tropical rainforest a suitable environment for many plants […] Read more

The tension of competitive rivalries is often a key ingredient for creating art. A young renaissance painter named Leonardo Da Vinci engaged in a battle of words with a great master Michelangelo. Brach and Picasso were so similar in their cubist style it was difficult to tell who painted what. The traditionalist Brahms and the […] Read more

It is 1959: in this remote corner of India, freshly dug graves, too numerous to count, speak of an unfathomable horror. In the forests, men desperately search for food, as famine stalks the countryside. Mothers dig up roots to fill bellies. Some hike hundreds of miles to find rice for their starving children. But it […] Read more

A vivid red on the coat and an arc of white hairs radiating from the face mark the Zanzibar red colobus. Extremely long feet allow this monkey to leap prodigiously in the treetops; however, as forests disappear, and in the absence of a major predator, this tree-dwelling species also spends time on the ground. Females […] Read more

A vivid red on the coat and an arc of white hairs radiating from the face mark the Zanzibar red colobus. Extremely long feet allow this monkey to leap prodigiously in the treetops; however, as forests disappear, and in the absence of a major predator, this tree-dwelling species also spends time on the ground. Females […] Read more