Brown bears seek concentrated food resources (salmon, sedges, carcasses, etc.) to fatten up for winter hibernation. (Photo credit: Katmai National Park and Preserve, courtesy National Park Service).
Hibernating animals can live through long periods of extreme weather during which food is scarce.
Read moreDoes the world embody beautiful ideas? Is the world a work of art? In a thoughtful mediation A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design, Nobel Prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek explores the relationship between ideal beauty and physical reality as it is understood by mathematicians and scientists.
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The relative positions of Earth, the moon, and the sun form the basis of our calendar. This composite image, acquired by the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Spacecraft (NEAR), on its way to the asteroid 433 Eros, shows our planet and its moon at the relative size each appears when viewed from the other. For viewing purposes, the moon is shown five times brighter and ten times closer to Earth than it actually is. (Image courtesy NSSDCA Photo Gallery, NASA)
Astronomy affects people's lives every day in a manner so ordinary most don't even realize it. The simple question, "What day is it?" can be answered by consulting a calendar, but the calendar itself is an artifact that relies on astronomy.
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