Whodathunkit?

On Basic Religion Test, Many Doth Not Pass
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: September 28, 2010

Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion. More

Longer Roots Are Discovered in Large Plant Family

A fossil flower that is an ancient relative of daisies suggests that the plant group rose 50 million years ago.
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Published: September 27, 2010

The Asteraceae family is one of the largest plant families in the world. Its 20,000-plus members are found on every continent but Antarctica and include daisies, sunflowers, dandelions, lettuce and artichokes.
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Now, scientists have found the oldest known member of this family in a nearly 50 million-year-old fossil flower. More

Vietnam: With Rabies Deaths on the Rise, a Menu Item Gets a Closer Look

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: September 27, 2010

Rabies deaths are on the rise in Vietnam, according to the country’s National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, whose director blamed slack management by provincial health authorities and public ignorance of the threat.

But subscribers to ProMED, a disease-outbreak Web site, have pointed out another contributing factor: in the mountainous rural northern provinces where the problem is worst, many people are fond of eating dogs. More

In Multilingual Switzerland, One Tongue Struggles

Asked why many Romansh books she sells are poetry, Elisabeth Maranta says, “When a patient is dying, he writes only poetry.”
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
Published: September 28, 2010

CHUR, Switzerland — The people of this corner of Switzerland are arguing whether language is a matter of the heart or the pocketbook.

Depending on whom you talk to in the steep, alpine enclaves of Graubünden, otherwise known as Grisons, the easternmost wedge of the country, there is either strong support or bitter resistance to Romansh, the local language. “When people talk about the death of Romansh,” said Elisabeth Maranta, who for the last 18 years has run a Romansh bookshop, Il Palantin, which sells books in Romansh and in German, “then I say that there are days when I only sell books in Romansh.” More