Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine makes headway against trachoma
An experimental immunization might someday aid public health efforts to counter a blinding disease.
- Chemistry
Cloud seeding by trees could alter precipitation, climate
Some tree pollens shed molecules that can affect precipitation.
- Life
Fossil moth reveals colorful hue
Paleontologists deduce how ridges on the creature’s wings would have reflected light.
- Space
European Planetary Science Conference and AAS Division for Planetary Sciences
News from a joint conference held October 2-7 in Nantes, France.
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Too smart to fail: Why people think they’re so great
A lot of the world’s biggest problems are what you might call crises of overconfidence. Big, powerful nations conquer small, unstable ones expecting that invading troops will be greeted as liberators. On Wall Street, people who should know better buy dubious investments under the assumption that they’ll be able to unload them before the bubble […]
- Earth
Solar changes help create cold northern winters
Fluctuations in ultraviolet light can set up frigid, snowy conditions across parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
- Space
Saturn’s rings tell a comet’s tale
Ripples made by a celestial impact 600 years ago can still be seen today.
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Mathematicians think of everything as rubber
How the rubbery world of topology may help describe the universe.
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Letters
Lumpy lunar illusion Are you folks aware of a phenomenon based on the universal expectation that objects are illuminated by light coming from above? Several startling optical illusions are based on this quirk of the mind. For example, the sharp moon map in “Orbiter delivers sharp moon map” (SN: 7/30/11, p. 12) makes the moon […]
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SN Online
BODY & BRAIN ‘Normal’ B12 levels may not be enough for the brain. Read “B12 shortage linked to cognitive problems.” LIFE A penguin can find its kin even in a sea of black and white. See “Penguins may sniff out relatives.” ATOM & COSMOS A NASA probe has found bizarre landforms on the planet nearest […]
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Science Future for October 22, 2011
October 31 Last day for artists to apply for a residency at the CERN particle physics lab near Geneva. Learn more at www.aec.at/prix/collide/ November 4 Chicago’s Field Museum opens its “Restoring Earth” exhibit. See www.fieldmuseum.org November 6 The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., explores MIT labs as hot spots of invention. See […]
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Science Past from the issue of October 21, 1961
‘ALARM CLOCK’ BRINGS SNAKES TO SURFACE — A built-in “alarm clock” apparently helps a brightly-banded little desert snake come to the surface at night after he has buried himself to escape the day’s heat…. It had been noted that these snakes, which remain buried in the sand most of the time, appear to come to […]
