All Stories
-
Blood Work
Knowing the identity of every protein in the liquid portion of blood could offer new ways to detect—or even treat and prevent—many diseases.
- Tech
Chip Collection
The Smithsonian’s “Chip Collection” Web site offers all sorts of nuggets of information for those interested in the history of integrated circuits. Developed and frequently updated by Nance L. Briscoe of the National Museum of American History, the site features more than 2,000 images, a “chip talk” glossary, examples of chip graffiti, information on patents, […]
- Humans
Medieval Medicine
For a glimpse of medicine in medieval times, check out the National Library of Medicine’s illustrated catalog of Islamic medical manuscripts. Visitors to the Web site can also get a brief introduction to the history of Islamic medicine and its role in European history, find biographies of important Islamic physicians, surgeons, and scholars, and browse […]
- Anthropology
Hand and Brain
Get a handle on primate handedness research and its bearing on brain function at a Web site run by anthropologist M.K. Holder. Participate in ongoing research and listen to various primates sound off, from a screaming chimpanzee to a belching mountain gorilla. Go to: http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/index.html
-
19228
I object to the glib use of the phrase “time reversal” in this article. Time is a sequential history of events and is not reversible. What the researchers are accomplishing is a clever resequencing of events, roughly analogous to playing a strip of movie film backwards, an event that I’m sure you will agree occurs […]
- Tech
On the Rebound
When electronically reversed in time, acoustic echoes can zero in on a spot in space, focusing sound energy so that it may zap tumors, detect submarines, or transmit private and secure information.
- Humans
From the March 11, 1933, issue
GREAT LION OF LA BREA Bigger by a fourth than the proudest lion that walks the veldt today were the tallest of the great lions of California a hundred thousand years ago. Rivaled in size only by the short-faced bears whose bones have been found with theirs in the La Brea tar-pits, they could confidently […]
- Earth
Autosub Under Ice
Follow the Southampton (UK) Oceanography Centre’s “Autosub Under Ice” expedition to Antarctica’s Pine Island Bay. The centre’s Web site features daily news reports, images, and interviews with expedition members aboard the unmanned sub’s parent ship. The expedition runs until April 2. Go to: http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/SOES/MSC/OC/CEO/aui/live.html
- Math
Art of the Grid
The practice of laying a grid on top of a drawing, then painstakingly copying each line of the drawing to the corresponding cell of a blank grid seems old-fashioned in these days of pervasive photocopying and electronic image manipulation. Nonetheless, the underlying idea of transferring information from one grid to another has a long history […]
-
19306
Your article ends with the claim that “a color-blind person and a noncarrier have no chance of having a color-blind child.” Yet as I recall from basic biology class, color blindness is considered a prime example of a sex-linked trait, which makes the above statement untrue. Carried on the X chromosome, the trait would manifest […]
- Health & Medicine
Gene mutation for color blindness found
Scientists have identified the gene that is mutated in people who have color blindness on the Pacific island of Pingelap, perhaps paving the way for genetic screening.
-
19305
This article is somewhat misleading. We physicians long ago learned that blocking the enzymatic process (with Antibuse) helps alcoholics. The news is that increases in acetaldehyde in saliva have “possible local carcinogenic action.” Malcolm A. Sowers Castro Valley, Calif
