184-year-old Adams letter found

"A letter written by President John Quincy Adams about burial plans for his father and mother was rediscovered in the basement of Quincy City Hall."



Read more by clicking on the title

More from Eyjafjallajokull

"As ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continued to keep European airspace shut down over the weekend, affecting millions of travelers around the world, some government agencies and airlines clashed over the flight bans."



One of the spectacular photos of the volcano. Click on the title to see more.

Collector’s ink hobby draws pen customers

Click on the title to read the article about Robert Bradford and Bradford Ink.

How you should take pen to paper, and why

How you should take pen to paper, and why

By EDWARD A. IANNUCCILLI

"I fell in love with fountain pens when Miss Casey taught us penmanship in the third grade. My penmanship was just promising — my letters were small, did not slant enough, and hugged the bottom line, never quite reaching the one above."

Read the article in its entirety here.

Duplicity

A quote from the movie 'Duplicity', spoken by Paul Giamatti as the character Richard Garsik: "Who writes with a fountain pen? How friggin' pretentious is that?" :-)

How a mosquito operates - Winsor McCay

A bit long for our modern sensibilities, but this must have been amazing for 1912!

Table tennis mittens

Finally, what we've all been waiting for...table tennis mittens!



See them in action by clicking the title

Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know

Haskins Laboratories
An M.R.I. of a brain highlighting areas used during reading.

"Why do we read fiction? Why do we care so passionately about nonexistent characters? What underlying mental processes are activated when we read?"

Click the title bar to read about this fascinating study

How your brain remembers the future

"IT'S like remembering the future. Our brain generates predictions of likely visual inputs so it can focus on dealing with the unexpected.

Predictable sights trigger less brain activity than unfamiliar stimuli, bolstering the view that the brain is not merely reactive, but generates predictions based on the recent past. "The brain expects to see things and really just wants to confirm it now and again," says Lars Muckli at the University of Glasgow, UK."

Click the title to read the full article

Cars vs. cosmic rays

Luis Alvarez / AP
Electrical consultant Antony Anderson holds up an electronic chip from an
acceleration pedal assembly during a news conference at the National Press Club
in Washington to discuss Toyota's sudden acceleration problems.

"Could cosmic rays affect electronics here on Earth? Yes, absolutely. Could cosmic rays be what's causing the mysterious accelerator problems in Toyota cars? Maybe. That's one of the reasons why a NASA engineering team has been called in to assist in a federal investigation."

Click the title bar to read the full article

The day the Earth froze: An hour-long storm started a mini ice age

"An hour-long hailstorm from space bombarded the Earth 13,000 years ago - plunging the planet into a mini-ice age, scientists claimed today.

The catastrophe was caused by a disintegrating comet and saw the planet sprayed by thousands of frozen boulders made of ice and dust.



The collisions wiped out huge numbers of animal species all over the world, disrupted the lives of our stone age ancestors and triggered a freeze that lasted more than 1,000 years."

Read more by clicking the title bar