Siamese-twin snowflakes.Siamese-twin snowflakes snowflakes small patches of gray or white hair acquired after birth. Skin color is unchanged. See also achromotrichia, vitiligo. At about the same time school-children learn to make a dozen identical snowflakes by folding and cutting a piece of paper, they learn the seemingly contradictory maxim that no two snowflakes are alike. Now a researcher who studies snow crystals -- the more general scientific term -- has found two that are alike, and not just on paper. Nancy Knight of the National Center for Atmospheric Research The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a non-governmental U.S.-based institute whose stated mission is "exploring and understanding our atmosphere and its interactions with the Sun, the oceans, the biosphere, and human society. in Boulder, Colo., has identified "two snow crystals, which, if not identical, are certainly very much alike," she reports in the May BULLETIN of the AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society is a publication of the American Meteorological Society. The official organ of the society, devoted to editorials, topical reports to members, articles, professional and membership news, conference announcements, programs and . These crystals (at right in photo) are columnar structures--an ordinary crystal form--and were collected on a slide attached to an airplane airplane, aeroplane, or aircraft, heavier-than-air vehicle, mechanically driven and fitted with fixed wings that support it in flight through the dynamic action of the air. . They are extraordinary, says Knight, because they seem attached as well as nearly identical. She speculates they grew together, perhaps budding off of adjacent tips on a star-shaped crystal. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion