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How a beam with no date gets one: tree rings and crossdating A beam from a ruined house has no date on it, but its rings do. Trees from the same region share the same wide and thin years, so a pattern of ring widths can… History5 min read Why common letters get short codes in a ZIP file: Huffman coding ASCII spends 8 bits on every letter, whether it is a common e or a rare z. In 1951 a graduate student, David Huffman, found a way to give frequent symbols… Computing4 min read How thousands of fireflies flash in time with no leader: pulse-coupled oscillators On riverbank trees in Southeast Asia, thousands of male fireflies flash together, with no leader and no shared clock. Each insect is just a small timer that… Biology4 min read Autumn leaves don't turn yellow. The yellow was there all summer Autumn leaves don't really turn yellow. The yellow carotenoids were in the leaf all summer, hidden under green chlorophyll. In autumn the tree dismantles its… Biology5 min read Ten thousand fireflies, no conductor Once a year in the Great Smoky Mountains, thousands of fireflies flash on and off together, down to a fraction of a second, for hours. No leader calls the… Biology6 min read