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Liquid Crystal
Brilliantly colored images of liquid crystals highlight the Web site of Kent State University’s Liquid Crystal Institute. The site also features research overviews, news and conference links, and other resources devoted to the study and application of liquid crystals. Go to: http://www.lci.kent.edu/
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From the January 31, 1931, issue
ROBBER FLY MASQUERADES IN BUMBLEBEE’S CLOTHING The villainous-looking hexapod that glares at you from the cover of this week’s SCIENCE NEWS LETTER is as bad a citizen as he looks. He is a robber fly, who should by rights be called an assassin fly, for his practice is to pounce upon other insects in the […]
- Humans
Amateur Scientist
The Web site of the Society for Amateur Scientists offers discussion forums, projects, and resources for people interested in taking part “in scientific adventures of all kinds.” Go to: http://earth.thesphere.com/sas/ or http://www.sas.org/
- Math
Fibonacci’s Chinese Calendar
In a book completed in the year 1202, mathematician Leonardo of Pisa (also known as Fibonacci) posed the following problem: How many pairs of rabbits will be produced in a year, beginning with a single pair, if every month each pair bears a new pair that becomes productive from the second month on? The total […]
- Math
Scheduling Random Walks
Juggling competing demands in a network of feverishly calculating computers drawing on the same memory resources is like trying to avert collisions among blindfolded, randomly zigzagging ice skaters. Example of a graph with one token poised to take a random walk. In this example of dependent percolation, a fickle demon would win (so far), but […]
- Math
Scheduling Random Walks
Juggling competing demands in a network of feverishly calculating computers drawing on the same memory resources is like trying to avert collisions among blindfolded, randomly zigzagging ice skaters. Example of a graph with one token poised to take a random walk. In this example of dependent percolation, a fickle demon would win (so far), but […]
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From the January 17, 1931, issue
AN AMERICAN ROMANCE IN STEEL AND STEAM Things mechanical offer the photographer an unlimited field for the exercise of his talents, and the locomotive–romantic and symbolical as it can be made–is especially attractive to him. On the front cover of this week’s SCIENCE NEWS LETTER, Photographer Rittase of Philadelphia has chosen the Boardwalk Flyer of […]
- Plants
The bladderwort: No ruthless microbe killer
A carnivorous plant called a bladderwort may not be a fierce predator at all but a misunderstood mutualist.
- Earth
Antarctic glacier thins and speeds up
One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is growing thinner and retreating inland, spurring concerns that changes occurring along the coastline may be causing the ice stream to drain more material from the interior of the continent and send it out to sea, thus aggravating rising sea levels.
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Life’s Housing May Come from Space
The cell-like envelopes in which life on Earth arose and evolved may literally have dropped from the sky.
- Earth
Seismic shivers tell of tornado touchdown
Researchers say they can now use earthquake-detecting seismometers to detect and possibly track all but the weakest tornadoes.
- Earth
Electricity-leaking office equipment
Nearly 2 percent of U.S. electricity each year goes to power office equipment that had ostensibly been turned off.
