Birdsfoot trefoil is an attractive relative of a familiar group of species of clovers known as Trifolium, which includes red, white, Swedish, Dutch and nearly 300 other species. Like clovers, it is a useful plant. While it grows on roadsides, it helps control erosion. It feeds both wild animals (geese, deer and elk) and domestic... Continue Reading →
How the Ju|’hoan Make Poison Arrows
When I was a child, my grandmother taught me how to make arrows from the softwood of a poplar, a tree that was abundant in the woods that we could step into from my backyard. Later in adolescence, biased from the movies that I watched, I perceived arrows to be "primitive". It is another case... Continue Reading →
Why Only Five Platonic Solids in Our Geo-Bio-Chemical World?
The DNA-surrounding capsid of the cold virus and the atomic arrangement of a certain allotrope of boron consists of 20 triangles arranged in a three dimensional shape known as a icosahedron. If you form a three-dimensional structure with 8 triangles, you get an octahedron. An example is the molecular structure of the electrical insulator and... Continue Reading →