We take it for granted that the universe changes. It began with the Big Bang, is still expanding; stars generate, die and are recycled. But until the sixteenth everyone believed – as the great Greek philosopher Aristotle had taught – that the heavens are eternal and unchanging. Then in 1572, a new star appeared. That…
Dead heads all in a row
The creature in the picture is a caterpillar with a pretty weird habit. That bit that looks like a spike is actually a pile of heads. As if that wasn’t odd enough, the heads all once belonged to the same caterpillar. Caterpillars go through molts as they grow. They start off teeny-tiny, and as…
Stony stomachs
Do you know that story about the wolf and the seven kids, recorded by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm? (If you don’t, you can read it here.) At the end [*spoiler alert*] the mother goat fills the wolf’s stomach with stones and stitches it up. Fairytales aren’t the only place that stones are found…
The original shipwrecked rhino
January 1516 – the rhino famous from Durer’s illustration drowns in the Mediterranean
The shipwrecked rhino 