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The benefits of being bilingual

According to the latest figures, the majority of the world’s population is now bilingual or multilingual, having grown up speaking two or more languages. In the past, such children were considered to be at a disadvantage compared with their monolingual peers...
Sep 29,2017

Flying tortoises

An airborne reintroduction programme has helped conservationists take significant steps to protect the endangered Galapagos tortoise. Forests of spiny cacti cover much of the uneven lava plains that separate the interior of the Galapagos island of Isabela from the Pacific Ocean...
Sep 29,2017

What's the purpose of gaining knowledge?

‘I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any subject'. That was the founders motto for Cornell University, and it seems an apt characterization of the different university, also in the USA, where I currently teach philosophy...
Sep 29,2017

Bring back the big cats

It's time to start returning vanished native animals to Britain, says John Vesty There is a poem, written around 598 AD, which describes hunting a mystery animal called a llewyn. But what was it? Nothing seemed to fit, until 2006, when an animal bone, dating from around the same period, was found ..
Sep 29,2017

The history of glass

From our earliest origins, man has been making use of glass. Historians have discovered that a type of natural glass - obsidian - formed in places such as the mouth of a volcano as a result of the intense heat of an eruption melting sand - was first used as tips for spears...
Sep 29,2017

Uk companies need more effective boards of directors

After a number of serious failures of governance (that is, how they are managed at the highest level), companies in Britain, as well as elsewhere, should consider radical changes to their directors’ roles. It is clear that the role of a board director today is not an easy one...
Sep 29,2017

Cork

Cork - the thick bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber) - is a remarkable material. It is tough, elastic, buoyant, and fire-resistant, and suitable for a wide range of purposes...
Sep 29,2017

What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?

Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred ancient human statues - the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by the Polynesians, it remained isolated for centuries...
Sep 29,2017

Raising the Mary Rose

How a sixteenth-century warship was recovered from the seabed. On 19 July 1545, English and French fleets were engaged in a sea battle off the coast of southern England in the area of water called the Solent, between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight...
Sep 29,2017

Crop growing skyscrapers

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the Earth's population will live in urban centres. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about three billion people by then...
Sep 29,2017