Results tagged “Technology”

It's hard for most of us to imagine life without the Internet! The phenomenon, originally known as the ARPANET was born September 2, 1969, when one computer passed information to another through a cable. Soon other researchers and scientists connected their computers to this network and shared information over long distances. Watch this video to learn more about the birth of the Internet.



Read the video transcript on National Geographic News.

Play Pluto's Secret on National Geographic Kids.

Songbirds fly faster than scientists thought they did--two to three times faster, in fact! A researcher from York University in Toronto outfitted wood thrushes and purple martins with miniature geolocators and tracked them as they migrated. The geolocators work by detecting light, which allows scientists to estimate the latitude and longitude where the data was recorded.

Scientists found that the birds fly two to six times faster during their spring return journey than in fall. One purple martin flew from Brazil to back to its breeding colony in the United States in only 13 days!

Find out more about the songbird study on National Geographic News.

Learn about tiny bee backpacks in this News Bite.








Large photograph courtesy Timothy J. Morton
Inset photograph courtesy Bridget J. Stutchbury

©2009 National Geographic (AP)

Japanese researchers have made a new humanoid (human-like) robot that has fingers so sensitive that it can pick up objects nearly as well as people can!

Scientists are using transmitters the size of three or four grains of rice, powered by a tiny hearing-aid battery, to track bees. The transmitters are small and light enough to attach to the backs of bees from two larger bee species with just a bit of eyelash glue and superglue.

Even loaded up with these backpacks, nearly a third of their body weight, "they fly beautifully," says zoologist Martin Wikelski, a 2008 National Geographic Emerging Explorer and director of the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany.

Honeybees have been disappearing and scientist hope that using radio transmitters may be a way to find out where they are going and why and they may help scientists explore native bee behaviors and understand the best ways to use native bees as crop pollinators instead of domestic honeybees.

Read about the disappearing honeybees here.

Learn more about the tiny transmitters on National Geographic News.