Robert Krulwich  

 

Topics by Robert Krulwich

Brain Candy

Extreme Tidying Up



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Have you ever wanted to alphabetize a bowl of alphabet soup? Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli did just that. The very tidy man also fixed up a haphazard parking lot and a photograph from the depths of the cosmos.
Brain Candy

A Deathbed Story I Would Never Tell



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
The day Richard Feynman's wife died, the clock stopped. While some might have thought it was fate, the famed scientist knew the clock was simply broken. Scientists think differently from others; to them, everything has a reason.
Science

Living Very, Very Narrowly



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Just 28 inches at its narrowest point (and four feet at the widest), Etgar Keret's home in Warsaw might be the skinniest home in the world.
Science

Living Very, Very Narrowly



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Just 28 inches at its narrowest point (and four feet at the widest), Etgar Keret's home in Warsaw might be the skinniest home in the world.
Science

Food On A Plate Shouldn't Move



By Robert Krulwich
Grab your fork, some salt and a sturdy seat and get ready for some post-mortem antics.
Science

Don't Like It Here? Find Another Universe.



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
The Noble-Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman encouraged scientists and layman alike to embrace the chaos of nature. A new cartoon biography expresses his message in vivid color.
Science

When Does A Person Start To Boil?



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Have you ever wondered how much heat you can take? 232 years ago, three men decided to find out.
Science

Tell Us Your Favorite Number



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
It's surprising to see how many people have warm, fuzzy feelings about cold, hard numbers. An ongoing worldwide survey reveals people's passion for primes.
Science

Waiting For Dave (As Told By His Lamp)



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
An ad that aims to celebrate technology quickly turns creepy as gadgets gain emotion and the human protagonist turns cold. Even more disturbing? This piece of commercial art imitates real life.
Science

Venus Has A Crowded Belly Button



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
There's something very special about your navel: the bacteria that live inside of it. According to scientists at the Belly Button Diversity project, each one of us has our own unique community of bacteria living in our middles — our "microbial signature."
Science

Baseball 'Bot, Please Do My Dishes



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
It can't pitch, hit or run, but it can catch two baseballs barehanded — at the same time. Even Derek Jeter can't do that. But there are some things humans just do better than robots.
Science

Getouttamyway! (Thoughts On City Traffic)



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
While traffic around the world continues to get worse, pedestrian techniques to avoid collisions remain the same: take crazy chances.
Science

Gut Bacteria Know Secrets About Your Future



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Trying to figure out why people attract different bacteria in their bodies could help us better understand why some forms of them can be working for us — and others, against us.
Science

Ghost Of Betty Friedan Miraculously Appears On LA Street (Maybe)



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
A video of a couple wandering through the city reveals something ... but what? That's the question Robert Krulwich is trying to figure out.
Science

8-Legged Mom Has 50,000 Babies: 2-Legged Woman Watches



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Off the coast of Seattle, a scuba diver meets a giant Pacific octopus guarding her nest of thousands of eggs.
Science

The Hardest Working Mom On The Planet



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
The giant Pacific octopus can have over 50,000 babies at one time, and spends months guarding those eggs — only to die soon after they are born.
Brain Candy

Calvin, Hobbes And Comic Book Biology



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Two artists defy the laws of Cartoon Land, and imagine a world where the stars of beloved comic strips are all grown up.
Brain Candy

Kurt Vonnegut Turns Cinderella Into An Equation



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Some people look at a sunset and see a sun setting. Others see the patterns of the sun rays, and everything around it — they are pattern addicts; they can't stop finding the abstract in the particular.
Brain Candy

Nature's Secret: Why Honey Bees Are Better Politicians Than Humans



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Democracy in the human world can be a messy and acrimonious business, but in the bee world, a little waggle dance can help you get all the votes you need.
Brain Candy

A Mouth I Can't Stop Thinking About



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
An ancestor of the elephant had a shovel-like jaw and huge front "teeth." These bizarre-looking creatures developed this mouth as they aged — but scientists haven't figured out why ... yet.
Brain Candy

The Ghost Of Madame Curie Protests...



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
A cartoonist brings Marie Curie back to life to tell young women she's not the only great female scientist, and asks them to check out some other amazing ones.
Brain Candy

Cinderella's Ball, This Time With Pendulums



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Fifteen free-swinging globes suspended from a board create a scientific dance that appeals first to the heart, and then to the head. Physics has never looked this beautiful.
Brain Candy

Strange Things Happen To Guys Who Wear Pants



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Birds, bats and bees might be the most famous plant pollinators, but seeds like to hitchhike on clothing, making us surprisingly good seed carriers.
Brain Candy

The Loneliest Plant In The World



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Two hundred million years ago, the world was full of a strange looking tree. Now there is only one left — in an African forest — a male species, desperately in need of a mate.
Brain Candy

The Loneliest Plant In The World



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Two hundred million years ago, the world was full of a strange looking tree. Now there is only one left — in an African forest — a male species, desperately in need of a mate.
Brain Candy

Dirty Dancing, A Gallant Spider Goes All The Way ...



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Male spiders (and males across the animal kingdom) will often court anything that even vaguely resembles a female. One in particular — the jumping spider — has a snazzy technique to catch their mate: dance their hearts out.
Space

A Cosmonaut's Fiery Death Retold


By Robert Krulwich
Space

A Cosmonaut's Fiery Death Retold


By Robert Krulwich
Space

A Cosmonaut's Fiery Death Retold


By Robert Krulwich
Brain Candy

Do Our Friends Make Us Fatter?



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Diet and exercise can keep you slim, but scientists suggest another way to maintain your svelte figure is to hang out with skinny friends.
Science

Chewing On Carbon: The Celery Question



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
When you eat a carrot, set fire to a piece of paper or put a match to a lump of coal, carbon atoms are being yanked, juggled and ripped out of each other's embrace. We've gotten very good at breaking carbon bonds: that's how we light our cities, drive our cars, power our tools.
Science

Carbon Goes Wild: The Global Warming Story



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Carbon's special skill is its extraordinary ability to bond with other atoms. It's just about the friendliest element in the periodic table, always grabbing and holding onto other atoms — which is why it is so suited for life.
Science

Carbon And 007: Both Of Them Bond, Both Of Them Frisky



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
"There is more than one way of being a Bond. You have your suave, supple, catlike bond, your stiff-shanked bond, your uncommitted, barely there bond," says science writer Natalie Angier. So set's take a look at carbon, among the most promiscuous of elements.
Brain Candy

The Triceratops Panic: Why Does Science Keep Changing Its Mind?



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Many of us have a hard time understanding that science knowledge is tentative, and what we learned as kids might no longer be true. In some people's minds, Pluto will always be a planet.
Brain Candy

The World's Tallest Tree Is Hiding Somewhere In California



By Robert Krulwich
Some people hunt for hidden treasures in the ocean, others scour the forests for gigantic trees. Meet the people who found a Redwood tree that's about twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, and over 700 years old.
Brain Candy

Water Rushing Through Cities, The Gentle Version



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Human beings are two-thirds water — and one could think of us forming a river as we move through life. Contemplating these striking photos from St. Petersburg, it's not so hard to believe.
Brain Candy

Cosmonaut Crashed Into Earth 'Crying In Rage'



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Everyone knew the mission would fail — the technicians, the pilot and the friend who would replace him if he deserted the mission. But Soviet leaders demanded a triumph in space, and so in 1967, Vladimir Komarov allowed himself to be launched towards his own death.
Space

Eleven Inch Earthlings Attack Space Shuttle!



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Forget about flying meteorites — 200-foot spiders and endangered woodpeckers could be the real threat to space ships.
Brain Candy

Where Did I Come From? Some Stolen Children Don't Want To Know.



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
A campaign to reunite Argentinean children kidnapped from their parents in the 1970s is being met with skepticism, as some children aren't sure they want to to take a test that would reveal their ancestry.
Brain Candy

Flamingos Drop From Siberian Sky: Locals Mystified



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Deep in the middle of a Siberian winter, a frozen bird fell from the sky. Then another. Not what you expect while ice fishing in the Russian wilderness.
Brain Candy

Bees Who Work For the Police



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
An artist dreams of turning social insects into police intelligent units — to help track illegal plants growing around town.
Brain Candy

Teeny Janitors Attack Gulf Spill, Then Vanish



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Lurking beneath the sea could be nature's most efficient cleanup crew — tiny organisms with an insatiable appetite for methane.
Brain Candy

Meat-Eating Furniture



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Carnivorous clocks and mouse-eating coffee tables? A team of designers have come up with concepts for furniture that double as pest-control devices. They use some innovative fuel cell technology to turn animals into energy.
Brain Candy

Tools Never Die. Waddaya mean, Never?



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Krulwich makes a bet he can find tools that have gone extinct — but it turns out old technology doesn't disappear like you'd think. Tools from centuries ago are still being made — and used, by more people than you'd think.
Brain Candy

Holy Mackril! Or Is It Macrell?



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
There are many ways to skin a cat, and just as many ways to spell "mackerel."
Brain Candy

Killer Storks Eat Human Babies (Perhaps)



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
The biggest threat to the three-foot-tall "hobbit" people living on the island of Flores, might have been a six-foot-tall stork.
Brain Candy

What's The Longest Word In The English Language?



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Finding the longest that describes something real can be a challenge — especially when you are competing with Mary Poppins.
Brain Candy

Watch Him Roll! Baby Edward's Amazing Brain



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Watch baby Edward explore the world. Every second, his brain is making thousands of new connections.  Yet while this is happening, many circuits he doesn't need are carefully being sculpted away.
Brain Candy

Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Tests suggest that today you'll do something you don't know about yet -- but somehow, it's already happened...and affected you.
Space

Neil Armstrong Talks About The First Moon Walk



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
In a letter to Robert Krulwich, Neil Armstrong reveals some unknown facts of the first lunar landing.
Brain Candy

60 Wild Coyotes Patrol Chicago (And Occasionally Stop At Convenience Stores)



MORE NEWS
By Robert Krulwich
Coyotes are pacing the streets and parks of Chicago, but they're not the predators you might expect -- more than 60 of them have been fitted with radio collars and have Cook County's blessing to roam wild and earn their keep catching small rodents.
Earth

My Grandson The Rock


READ MORE
By Robert Krulwich
In this story, we explain why someday you might have a rock for a grandson.
Astronomy

Here Comes The Sun And I Say...'Uh Oh'


READ THIS ARTICLE
MORE NEWS FROM WGBH
By Robert Krulwich
The sun goes through cycles. Quiet ones, then not-so-quiet... the next not-so-quiet phase "is expected to start sometime between 2010 and 2012."
Brain Candy

The First Photo Of A Human (Or Two Humans? Or Three?)


Read this Article
More News from WGBH
By Robert Krulwich
See an 1838 photograph of what might be the first human caught on film, now in color! A reader colorized Louis Daguerre's Boulevard du Temple, then scrutinized all the minute details in the image.
Brain Candy

Boo! Chinese & European Monsters Strangely, Eerily Similar


Read this Article
More News from WGBH
By Robert Krulwich
Something inside of us loves a good monster. Scary is good. Scary/familiar is better. Turns out, around the world, our monsters come in strangely predictable forms.
Brain Candy

First Photo Of A Human Being Ever?


Read this Article
More News from WGBH
By Robert Krulwich
A photograph of a street in Paris taken in 1838 may be the first-ever image of a person captured on film. The photographer? None other than Louis Daguerre, the inventor of Daguerreotype photography.
Brain Candy

Linnaeus, Shlinnaeus!


READ MORE
By Robert Krulwich
Swedish scholar Carolus Linnaeus devised the naming system for all living things. Little did he know that his naming convention would one day lead to critters classified as Johnny rotteni and Khruschevia ridicula.
Animals

Migration Blues: When Birds Don't Fly South


READ MORE
By Robert Krulwich
This little bird has a tale of migration woe that's common to many animals around the world. But one leg of its broken journey seems to have been repaired.

The hits and the highlights from WGBH

Stay in the know about upcoming shows, special events, discounts, and more!
See a sample »