Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto. I'll ...

American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) used elegant words to describe a chambered nautilus; he called its up-to-10-inch shell a "lustrous coil" with "shining archway" and "irised ceiling." ...