Showing results by author "Dan Lewis" in All Categories

The problems that beavers can cause are, actually, pretty simple: firstly, the animals build dams – which is a very good thing if they're in a relatively rural floodplain, but a really bad thing if they're in more densely populated suburbs or cities – and secondly, if left unchecked, beavers in an area with a lot of humans can cause damage to trees and, in some cases, flooding.

Off the southwestern corner of the Korean Peninsula is Sorokdo, or Sorok Island. At first glance, it looks like a good vacation getaway – it is a tiny but accessible 1.75-square-mile (or 4.46-square-kilometer) spot of land with nice beaches and pine trees, and is home to about 1,000 people, give or take a few hundred.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are, respectively, the largest city and the capital of the state of Minnesota. Together, they're often referred to as the "Twin Cities" because they border one another—the local baseball team (the Minnesota Twins) even adopted the moniker.

"There's no such thing as a free lunch." That quote, the origins of which are unknown, has been a staple rule of economics for nearly a century.

At the close of World War II, the victorious Allies split Germany into four parts—one controlled by France, another by the United Kingdom, another by the United States and another by the Soviet Union. And Berlin, although it was embedded within the Soviet-controlled sector, was itself divided into four similarly managed parts.

ATMs – short for automated teller machines – have become a ubiquitous feature in the lives of most people in developed nations.

On the evening of December 2, 1984, a chemical manufacturing plant in Bhopal, India owned by Union Carbide began leaking toxic gas into the residential areas surrounding the plant, and the resulting tragedy is considered one of the worst such disasters in history.

In 1875, two men from Wisconsin convinced P.T. Barnum, the famed showman, to join their business – a circus. Barnum's job was to lend his name to the product and, ultimately, his wisdom as well, and the circus became known as "P.T. Barnum's Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome."

In 2013, Mamoru Samuragochi was nearing his 50th birthday and was at the peak of his fame. A talented composer, Samuragochi was near the top of the list if you needed an original score for a video game and was widely regarded as a leading talent in the realm of digital composition. He was also well known for composing a symphony about the Hiroshima bomb, which quickly became one of the more popular classical music pieces in Japan.

Sometime in the summer of 1933, a couple in Trinidad – it's unclear if they were ever married – went through a particularly nasty breakup. The woman, Caroline, believed her partner to be less-than-faithful; his reputation for philandering and carousing was more than she could handle, especially given that she had just given birth to twin boys six months prior. Caroline decided to return to Germany, where she – a practicing Roman Catholic – had grown up.

Learn about New York City's decades-long pinball ban – and resulting black market – on this episode of Now I Know. Fiorello LaGuardia was elected mayor of New York City in 1933, and, on January 1st of the following year, took office. One of his first acts as mayor was to crack down on mafia activity, especially mob-owned slot machines, seeing them as a direct line into the coffers of organized crime.

Baseball, like many other sports, requires good hand-eye coordination. This is especially true if you're trying to hit a pitched ball with a bat – for instance, a 75-mile-per-hour fastball (which is fast for amateurs, but comically slow if you're a Major League pitcher) reaches home plate in less than a second.

In the 1971 book The Lorax, the incomparable Dr. Seuss tells the story of an environmentally conscious monster (the Lorax) and his efforts to protect Truffula trees (a fictional species) from an industrialist named the Once-ler who is chopping them down.

Libraries are, increasingly, more than just books—they're repositories of information, and all that knowledge is made open to the public. You can scan decades-old magazines now stored on microfiche, check out CDs and DVDs (and even vinyl and VHS tapes, if you have a device that can play them), and you can surf the internet with reckless abandon.

In 1918, the United Kingdom passed the Representation of the People Act, resulting in a major overhaul of the U.K.'s voting system.

In April 1939, DuPont Chemical introduced nylon stockings to the world at the World's Fair in New York City.

The building located at 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan – like many buildings in Manhattan – is tall. But at 550 feet, it isn't all that tall by New York City's standards – it doesn't even crack the top 100.

In the fall of 1994, the United States was introduced to a new tool in the world of crime solving and prosecution – DNA evidence. The O.J. Simpson trial had captured the nation's – if not much of the world's – attention, and a large part of the trial's outcome hung on DNA. At the time, the use of DNA evidence was still emerging, and the science wasn't well understood – or trusted – by juries.

How does one keep a billion-dollar airport from cracking? Learn about San Francisco's groundbreaking solution to the seismic problem on this episode of Now I Know. The San Francisco Bay area is home to an extraordinary number of earthquakes. According to Earthquake Track, for a one-year period ending on March 24, 2016, the San Francisco Bay area experienced more than 650 earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 or greater – more than a dozen earthquakes a week.

Lab Sixty Three is a podcast about identity, creativity, and the stories that make people who they are.Each episode shines a light on interesting individuals - artists, makers, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and everyday people doing things their own way.Through relaxed conversations, we explore the moments that shaped them, the ideas they live by, the work they care about, and the parts of their story that usually stay behind the scenes.Some episodes come from Spotlight Days - immersive sessions where we document someone’s craft, creativity, and perspective through film, photography, and ...