Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce tequila by pollinating agave plants.

Thai village crafts, as with other cultures, have developed through the principle that form follows function and incorporate readily available materials fashioned using traditional skills.

The commission has directed advertisers to restrict the use of the word "natural" to foods that do not contain color or flavor additives, chemical preservatives, or nothing that has been synthesized.

Sunspots, vortices of gas associated with strong electromagnetic activity, are visible as dark spots on the surface of the Sun but have never been sighted on the Sun's poles or equator.

Unlike the nests of leaf cutters and most other ants, situated underground or in pieces of wood, raider ants make a portable nest by entwining their long legs to form "curtains" of ants that hang from logs or boulders, providing protection for the queen and the colony larvae and pupae.

A pioneer journalist, Nellie Bly's exploits included circling the globe faster than Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg.

Rising inventories, when unaccompanied correspondingly by increases in sales, can lead to production cutbacks that would hamper economic growth.

Carnivorous mammals can endure what would otherwise be lethal levels of body heat because they have a heat-exchange network which kept the brain from getting too hot.

Many experts regarded the large increase in credit card borrowing in March not as a sign that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow, rather a sign of confidence by households that they could safely handle new debt.

Although Alice Walker published a number of essays, poetry collections, and stories during the 1970s, her third novel, The Color Purple, which was published in 1982, brought her the widest acclaim in that it won both the National Book Award as well as the Pulitzer Prize.