Robert Krulwich

David Foster Wallace tells us about freedom

Robert Krulwich — Sun, 19 May 2013 04:14:18 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmpYnxlEh0c

What is it about bees and hexagons?

Robert Krulwich — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:58:02 +0000

Solved! A bee-buzzing, honey-licking 2,000-year-old mystery that begins here, with this beehive. Look at the honeycomb in the photo and ask yourself: (I know you've been wondering this all your life, but have been too shy to ask out loud ... ) Why is every cell in this honeycomb a hexagon?

Bees, after all, could build honeycombs from rectangles or squares or triangles ...

But for some reason, bees choose hexagons. Always hexagons.

And not just your basic six-sided hexagon.

Moths that drive cars—no, really!

Robert Krulwich — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:58:10 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2k1T2X7_Aw

Monty Python's John Cleese almost explains our brains

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:20:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQjgsQ5G8ug

Daring, dangerous DIY: Pants with benefits?

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 19:51:18 +0000

They are pants. Or maybe we should call them Pants with Benefits. Some of you — especially parents of young teens — will find them totally inappropriate.

Hear brilliant 9-year-old 'philosopher' explain the world

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 20:37:08 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvMiXk2gGSk

Let's get literal: Calculating Pi with pies

Robert Krulwich — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:41:20 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNiRzZ66YN0

The oldest rock in the world tells us a story

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:56:02 +0000

It's hard to imagine how this teeny little rock — it's not even a whole rock, it's just a grain, a miniscule droplet of mineral barely the thickness of a human hair — could rewrite the history of our planet. But that's what seems to be happening.

What is this? It's a zircon, from the Persian word "zargun" meaning "golden colored," an extremely durable mineral found all over the world. This one turned up in a dry, hilly region of Western Australia. It was sitting inside a larger rock, and when scientists checked, it turns out this little grain formed around 4.4 billion years ago.

Suddenly there's a meadow in the ocean with 'flowers' everywhere

Robert Krulwich — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:23:29 +0000

It was three, maybe four o'clock in the morning when he first saw them. Grad student Jeff Bowman was on the deck of a ship; he and a University of Washington biology team were on their way back from the North Pole. It was cold outside, the temperature had just dropped, and as the dawn broke, he could see a few, then more, then even more of these little flowery things, growing on the frozen sea.

"I was absolutely astounded," he says. They were little protrusions of ice, delicate, like snowflakes. They began growing in the dry, cold air "like a meadow spreading off in all directions.

What to do when the bus doesn't come and you want to scream

Robert Krulwich — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 06:35:04 +0000

We're in Milan. We're not happy. We're waiting for a bus that doesn't seem to come. Then we see this:

Three different sized sheets of bubble wrap, sized for how long you expect to wait: a little square for three minutes, bigger for five minutes, biggest for 10 — and the sign on top says: "Antistress For Free!!"

Everyone knows what to do.

The Rubik's Cube that will trip up your mind

Robert Krulwich — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:16:01 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBNHPk-Lnkk

Finally solved: Finnish underwater ice fishing mystery

Robert Krulwich — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 17:20:46 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs00QjiJZQ

Sunflowers seen flying through empty desert – Why?

Robert Krulwich and Vincent Liota — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 17:31:21 +0000

I've been hearing strange wind stories all my life. The best ones are both wildly improbable but still true, like how the Empire State Building gets hit by wafts of barley flying in on jet streams from Iowa, or how tons of sand from the Saharan desert rain down every year onto Brazilian rainforests. You never know what the wind will bring. The wind decides.

Here's a new one.

An interplanetary sailing ship that travels on sunshine

Robert Krulwich — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:02:45 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mb47w0vB04

Animals who love to rub themselves with ants. Is this addictive?

Robert Krulwich — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:12:15 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5fnhUmT5fY