Showing results by author "Dan Lewis" in All Categories

George Miller Beard was born in 1839. He attended Yale University, graduating in 1862, and in 1866 he earned a medical degree at the school now affiliated with Columbia University.

For some people, high school is life's best years. For others, those four years are, well, happily forever in the past. But at any rate, once high school is over, you can't go back—at least, not as a student.

Despite its name, Iceland is actually a very welcoming country if you're a tourist looking to get away. The small island nation is one of the few places where visitors can see the Northern Lights, go whale watching, climb volcanic mountains, and also avail themselves of the heated spas and pools that the nation's geothermal energy allows.

The marbled murrelet is a seabird native to the coasts of the Pacific Ocean and is often spotted around Oregon, Washington, Northern California, British Columbia and Alaska (as well as somewhat in Russia and northern Japan). They thrive in old-growth forests, and if you're a human, it's rare to find one of their nests, as they tend to build them hundreds of feet off the ground.

The internet has made newspapers' "Help Wanted" ads a thing of the past. But in 2001, before this form of advertising was sent into obsolescence, an entrepreneurial (and seemingly desperate) job seeker named Brian O'Dea used the medium to reverse things.

Imagine what Earth was like a thousand years ago—the year 1015. Almost everything would be foreign to modern eyes and ears—even the language would be incomprehensible.

Alligators' tails allow them to swim. By moving its tail from side to side, the animal can propel itself through water at fish-like speeds, which is important because when it comes to eating, alligators have a pretty easily defined diet: if it is in or near the water, it is food.

Yves Rossy is a pilot. Like most other pilots, he flies things. But unlike any other pilot, the thing he flies is himself.

The term "caloric stimulation" sounds like a medical term, and that's probably because it is one. Unfortunately, the term has nothing to do with eating an absurd amount of apple pie, but on the plus side, it's evidence that our ears can detect differences in temperature, with our eyes serving as their thermometers.

If you live in an area where Halloween is celebrated, there's a very good chance you'll have a bucket of junk in your house on October 31st. You also probably have someone in your house – kids, adults, perhaps even part of your own internal monologue – begging to eat some of that loot. But nutrition should come first, of course …right?

Lake Hillier, situated on an island in the Recherche Archipelago – a collection of islands to the south of Western Australia also known as the Bay of Isles – is about 2,000 feet long and 800 feet wide. But one characteristic of Lake Hillier sets it apart from other lakes – it's pink.

Dental floss? That's good for your teeth and gums. Fairy floss? That's anything but good for your oral health (and if you're in Australia, you already know that).

Off the southwestern corner of the Korean Peninsula is Sorokdo, or Sorok Island. At first glance, it looks like a good vacation getaway – it is a tiny but accessible 1.75-square-mile (or 4.46-square-kilometer) spot of land with nice beaches and pine trees, and is home to about 1,000 people, give or take a few hundred.

Every four years, the Summer Olympics captures the world's attention. And every four years, athletes with various disabilities compete in a companion event called the Summer Paralympics.

The typical LSD "hit" contains about 100 micrograms of the drug – at the high end, that means a gram holds about 10,000 doses.

In September 2013, a New York City man named Antonio Ciccarello died as a result of a stab wound. About five days prior to his death, Ciccarello was commuting to work like he normally did, traveling from Manhattan's Lower East Side to Times Square. But this trip was different.

The problems that beavers can cause are, actually, pretty simple: firstly, the animals build dams – which is a very good thing if they're in a relatively rural floodplain, but a really bad thing if they're in more densely populated suburbs or cities – and secondly, if left unchecked, beavers in an area with a lot of humans can cause damage to trees and, in some cases, flooding.

As of this writing, the Gobi Desert in northern China/southern Mongolia encompasses about half a million square miles (about 1.3 million square kilometers) – and that's "as of this writing" because the Gobi Desert is growing.

If you're running a counterfeiting ring, you probably need a lot of, let's say, "employees." One of the key ones is an engraver – someone who is going to make the plates from which your copies are produced.

Southwest Airlnes was founded in 1967 by Rollin King, an investment consultant, and Herb Kelleher, an attorney. Kelleher served as the company's CEO from 1981 until 2001 and oversaw many different initiatives over his tenure.