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From the September 5, 1931, issue
SEEING EYE TO EYE WITH A WHITE WASP The medieval Japanese, who sometimes closed up the fronts of their helmets with ferocious metal masks painted with vivid war paint, knew the right psychology for hand-to-hand encounters. It is much more disconcerting to be confronted with an immobile, wholly artificial hobgoblin face than to see that […]
- Health & Medicine
Milk seems to guard against breast cancer
Norwegian scientists have linked high milk consumption to low incidence of breast cancer.
- Tech
Quantum bell rings to electron beat
A new nanoscale transistor that parcels out electrons with metronome-like regularity has the potential to lead to designs for electronic noses and tiny devices inside of cell phones.
- Tech
Crystal listens for telltale sounds of virus
Scientists have built a device that can hear the movement of viral particles in fluids.
- Health & Medicine
Hindering glutamate slows rat brain cancer
Compounds that inhibit the amino acid glutamate impede a form of brain cancer called glioma in rats.
- Animals
It’s a snake! No, a fish. An octopus?
An as-yet-unnamed species of octopus seems to be protecting itself by impersonating venomous animals from sea snakes to flatfish.
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Human Brains May Take Unique Turn
Preliminary evidence indicates that the human brain may undergo a unique form of fetal development that facilitates the growth of brain areas involved in symbolic thought and language.
- Computing
Computer paints a charged bioportrait
By employing a novel computational strategy, researchers have mapped the electrical landscape of biological molecules made up of more than 1 million atoms.
- Math
Pi à la Mode
A potential link between two disparate mathematical fields—number theory and chaotic dynamics—could lead to a proof that every digit of pi occurs with the same frequency.
- Paleontology
New fossil sheds light on dinosaurs’ diet
Vestiges of soft tissue preserved in a 70-million-year-old Mongolian fossil suggest that some dinosaurs could have strained small bits of food from the water and mud of streams and ponds, just like some modern aquatic birds do.
- Tech
The Seeing Tongue
Blind people can now use their tongues to see, albeit crudely, thanks to prototype technology that involves licking arrays of electrodes attached to video cameras.
- Health & Medicine
Insulin lowers more than blood sugar
Insulin may reduce inflammation and protect the heart.
