For reasons that remain mostly mysterious, the note we call "B flat" does the oddest things. It aggravates alligators, it lurks in the stairwell of an office building, and it emanates from a supermassive black hole 250 million light years from Earth.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7442915
Tagged with robert krulwich sound npr
Joseph Guillotin, Henry Shrapnel and Jules Leotard became immortal by entering the English language. But when your entire life is reduced to a single definition, the results are sometimes upsetting.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/09/28/140467781/wanna-live-forever-become-a-noun
Try this: Put a blindfold on someone, take them to a park or a beach or a meadow and ask them to walk for as long as they can in a straight line. Then watch what happen.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2010/11/03/131050832/a-mystery-why-can-t-we-walk-straight
Tagged with npr morning edition robert krulwich science