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POPSTracking the Origin of the Cat Cats probably started living close to humans when people evolved from nomadic herding to raising livestock and crops and started storing food, which attracted mice and other rodents. Cats found good hunting there, and humans surely appreciated the sly little predators' help protecting their stocks."There was a mutual benefit," Lyons said. From there, domesticated cats started to radiate out to different parts of the world, often following humans on their migrations. Today cats can be divided genetically into four broad groups: those from Europe, the Mediterranean, East Africa and Asia. But Lyons and her colleagues also made surprising discoveries about individual breeds. The Japanese bobtail, for example, does not seem genetically similar to cats from Japan, indicating the breed may have originated elsewhere. Despite its name, the Persian, the oldest recognized breed, looks as though it actually arose in Western Europe and not Persia, which today is Iran.
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POPSThe Ancient Mechanics and How They Thought He also majored in astronomy as an undergraduate, and about nine years ago, feeling science-deprived, he joined a multinational research endeavor called the Archimedes Project, based at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. The Archimedes team studies the history of mechanics, how people thought about simple machines like the lever, the wheel and axle, the balance, the pulley, the wedge and the screw and how they turned their thoughts into theories and principles. The textual record begins with “Mechanical Problems,” moves to Rome and then through the medieval Islamic world to the Renaissance. It ends, finally, with Newton, who described many of the basic laws of mechanics in the 18th century. By following the historical record, the Archimedes researchers have discovered that the evolution of physics — or, at least, mechanics — is based on an interplay between practice and theory.
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POPSIzzy Lane and the Unique Sheep Sanctuary of Scotland Isobel Davies loves sheep - she created a Sheep Sanctuary in Scotland after she found that many sheep were sent to slaughter for various reasons from being male to being lame. She also discovered that farmers were burning the wool sheared from their sheep rather than selling it to manufacturers in other industries. Because 80 percent of the wool used in Britain’s clothing industry was imported, the native farmers couldn’t compete with the low prices—it would actually cost them more to properly shear and sell the wool than it would to just hack it off and burn it. Davies decided to create an economic model that would preserve the sheep AND support the British clothing industry. She created Izzy Lane Sheep-Friendly Clothing!
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