Notebook
- Physics
Oldest pitch-drop experiment
The allure of pitch — a black tarlike hydro-carbon by-product of distilling petroleum, wood or coal — comes from its split personality: It shatters from a quick hit with a hammer, but flows if set aside for long periods.
- Health & Medicine
Seek Meningitis Vaccine
Excerpt from the November 9, 1963, issue of SCIENCE NEWS LETTER.
- Animals
The colorful lives of squid
Your calamari, it turns out, may have come from a temporary transvestite with rainbows in its armpits.
- Animals
Dogs pick up robots’ social cues
Dogs were more likely to pay attention to a PeopleBot robot — a machine with a laptop head and Mickey Mouse–style hands — after watching it walk, talk and shake hands with humans.
- Science & Society
Funding slide
U.S. federal spending on science has decreased sharply since 2010. Scientists are feeling the crunch.
- Animals
Vampire reality check
A vampire bat drinks one meal a night, and missing just three nights in a row would probably kill the animal.
- Planetary Science
Comet belt predicted near farthest planet
Observations have confirmed the existence of the Kuiper Belt, first proposed in 1963.
- Paleontology
Dinosaur dreams dashed
Fans of 'Jurassic Park' may be disappointed (or possibly relieved) to learn that you can’t get ancient DNA from amber.
- Earth
Biggest volcano hulks deep
Tamu Massif forms a broad, rounded dome rising about 4 kilometers from the seafloor and stretching 450 by 650 kilometers across.
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- Cosmology
Huge Galactic Explosion
An excerpt from the October 5, 1963, issue of Science News Letter.
