Number of words: 116 (1) Those who had coins, enjoyed in the rain. Those who had notes, were busy looking for shelter. (2) Man and God both met somewhere. Both exclaimed, “My creator.” (3) He asked, are you a Hindu or Muslim? The response came, “I am hungry”! (4) The fool didn’t know it was … Read more

Number of words: 368 Scientists have determined the ideal wing shape for fast flapping flight — an advance that may lead to better methods for harvesting energy from water as well as for enhancing airspeed.The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, relies on a technique that mimics evolutionary biology to ascertain … Read more

Number of words: 950 MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was. … Read more

Number of words: 1,005 I HAVE been studiously following the mantra given by George Perkovich, and, accordingly, haven’t watched Indian TV news for a couple of years or more. I would advise my Pakistani friends to do the same with their TV. Switch it off. The celebrated defence analyst, author of a seminal work on … Read more

Number of words: 3,736 On a rare rainy day early last year, my husband, Alex, and I toured what, with any luck, would become the most exciting and daunting purchase of our lives: a cream-colored bungalow-style fixer-upper, built in 1924, a few blocks from our rental in Santa Barbara, Calif. What the house lacked in … Read more

Number of words: 37 Abraham Lincoln once posed the question: “If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does it have?” and then answered his own query: “Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.”

Number of words: 475 Sharks are at the top of the marine food chain for a reason. Their massive size along with a dazzling row of extra-sharp teeth make them the fiercest hunters in our oceans. But it turns out that the shark’s aquatic dominance reaches down into its very DNA, and through its mutations, … Read more

Number of words: 330 Spider silk, known as one of the strongest materials for its weight, turns out to have another unusual property. It might lead to new kinds of artificial muscles or robotic actuators, researchers have found. The fibres, according to study experts, respond very strongly to changes in humidity.Above a certain level of … Read more

Number of words: 2,702 In a weedy field 35 miles west of Chicago squats a tidy red-brick building with a peaked roof, about the size of a one-car garage. Against the eastern wall, reaching just above the roofline, are poles equipped with small dish antennas that send microwave signals to and gather them from financial … Read more

Number of words: 95 The prime minister told the army The general told his men, The colonel briefed his officers, And a major just asked “when”?. The captains ordered Sergeants, And the sergeants told the troops, And the soldiers picked their weapons up, Then jumped through all the hoops. The prime ministers praised the army, … Read more