Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On May 7, 2018, while the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War, is breaking box office records, we stop to ask about the main premise of the film, the arch villain Thanos and his plan to reduce life in the Universe by half in order to prevent an overpopulation catastrophe. Our question is, “Has anyone tried this plan in real life?”  In 1968, Paul and Anne Ehrlich published a book titled, The Population Bomb, a dire warning about the catastrophic consequences of overpopulation of people on Earth.  So far, those predictions have not…

A Brief History On May 2, 1918, General Motors Corporation acquired the Delaware based Chevrolet Motor Company, its last major car company acquisition for decades. GM would grow to be the largest car manufacturer in the world from 1931 to 2007, a 77 year reign as king of the automakers no other company has matched. In recent years GM vies with Toyota and Volkswagen for the championship auto manufacturer title, with strong competition from Ford Motor Company, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, and Fiat-Chrysler (which also makes Jeep and Dodge among its nameplates). GM sells about 8 to 10 million cars per year world-wide,…

A Brief History On May 1, 2018, we celebrate another Save the Rhino Day by telling you a little about the “Holiday” and a little about Rhinoceroses. (If people asked me, can you speak rhinoceros, I’d say, “Of courserous, can’t you?” from the song, “If I Could Talk to the Animals” an Academy Award winning tune from the 1967 movie, Dr. Dolittle,  music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse.) Digging Deeper Of the 5 species of Rhinoceros alive today, 3 are listed as critically endangered. The Northern sub-species of the White Rhino of Africa may already be extinct in the wild,…

A Brief History On April 29, 1945, the British Royal Air Force aided by units of the Australian, New Zealand, Canadian, and Polish Air Forces began Operation Manna over the occupied part of the Netherlands (Holland) with the acquiescence of the German occupiers. The United States Army Air Forces started their own, similar, operation 2 days later called Operation Chowhound. As you may guess from the code names given the operations, the military action was feeding the starving civilian population of occupied Netherlands, dropping food from bomber aircraft. Digging Deeper In all, more than 11,0000 tons of food were dropped…

A Brief History On April 28, 1503, the armies of Spain and France fought in Southern Italy at a place called Cerignola (near Bari), a battle decided by the small arms fire of muskets and arquebuses, one of the first European battles where small arms fire from firearms decided the battle. Although hand held firearms using black powder had been around for nearly 200 years, such weapons had usually not been decisive in battles fought mainly with edged weapons and later with a combination of edged weapons and cannons. Digging Deeper Gunpowder is an invention normally credited to the Chinese…