A South American bird that forages for winged termites and other small insects while swinging upside down from the foliage of tall trees, the graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New Worldtropical birds that includes more than 230 species and that are represented in virtually every kind of habitat

After more than four decades of research and development, a new type of jet engine is being tested that could eventually propel aircraft anywhere in the world within two hours or help boost cargoes into space at significantly lower costs than current methods permit.

Socially and environmentally responsible investing is on the rise: last year in the United States, over $2 trillion was invested in funds that screen companies according to a variety of criteria such as adherence to labor standards, protection of the environment, and observance of human rights.

In an effort to reduce the number of fires started by cigarettes, a major tobacco company is test-marketing a cigarette in which thin layers of extra paper are used to decrease the amount of oxygen entering the cigarette, thereby slowing the rate at which it burns and lowering the heat it generates.

Unlike human runners, who broke the four-minute mile in 1954 and they consistently recorded faster times ever since, horses in classic races such as the Kentucky Derby have had winning times with little improvement: Secretariat's world-record-breaking Derby tine of 1:59 2/5, for example, was set in 1973 and remained unsurpassed more than a quarter of a century later.

In the sixteenth century, the push for greater precision in measuring time was not, like more recently, motivated by complicated philosophical questions about the nature of matter and the universe, but the practical matters of navigation: sailors simply needed more highly accurate timepieces in order to computer their longitude form the positions of the stars.

Giuseppe Alessi, a world-class chef whose life has been a search for the genuine and the delicious in Florentine cooking, is an accomplished scholar not only unearthing many of his recipes from medieval and Renaissance manuscripts but also a poet and philosopher who draws his inspiration from the idyllic frescoes of Etruscan tombs.

A Swiss government panel recommended that the country sell about half of its gold reserves and this raised fears of other countries that do the same and inundate the market.

In Greek theology the supreme being was Esaugetu Emissee (Master of Breath), who dwelt in an upper realm in which the sky was the floor, and who had the power to give and to take away the breath of life.

Antarctica receives more solar radiation than does any other place on Earth, yet the temperatures are so cold and the ice cap is reflective, so that little polar ice melts during the summer; otherwise, the water levels of the oceans would rise 250 feet and engulf most of the world's great cities.