At around 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18, 1925, a tornado formed above the woods in southern Missouri. A small but strong swirling funnel touched the ground, uprooting trees and sending them hurling through the air.
As the tornado sped northeast, it grew in size and speed and demolished the small town of Annapolis, leveling 78 houses. Next it slammed into the town of Biehle. There, a school with 25 students and their teacher was lifted up into the air and carried the length of several soccer fields. As the building splintered in midair, the kids and teacher were flung back to Earth. Somehow, each one of them survived.
The tornado grew darker, louder, bigger. People observed not a slender, fluffy white spiral but an enormous, near mile-wide black cloud. It sounded at moments like screaming freight trains and acted like a monstrous vacuum, sucking up and slinging debris of every imaginable sort: roofs of buildings, shards of glass, and entire cars and tractors. As it was traveling at more than 73 miles per hour (117 km/h) and producing winds of about 300 mph (483 km/h), no one could outrun it.
The Tri-State tornado, as it became known, sputtered to an end in southwest Indiana, three and a half hours after forming. By that time, it had traveled through three states, leaving 695 people dead and over 2,000 injured. Considered the deadliest single tornado in US history, the Tri-State tornado scarred the people of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana and terrified the nation.
The Shape of Things
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Bu hikaye Muse Science Magazine for Kids dergisinin July/August 2021 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
