Science News

All Stories by Science News

  1. Humans

    From the August 9, 1930, issue

    A FISH WITH HANDS A fish of more than ordinary piscine talent is sometimes found in the drifting masses of gulfweed or Sargassum in the great mid-Atlantic eddy. It is only a little fish, a couple of inches long, but it can use its two pectoral fins for some of the functions of hands. It […]

  2. Humans

    From the August 2, 1930, issue

    SHOOTING STARS, THE STORY-TELLERS OF THE UNIVERSE Of fortunate rarity are celestial visitors like the huge meteoric mass that dug the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona about 2,000 years ago. This scar on the face of the earth near Winslow, Ariz., is four-fifths of a mile across and 450 feet deep. It is shown on […]

  3. Humans

    From the July 26, 1930, issue

    DID THE MOUNDBUILDERS COME FROM MEXICO? Were the Indians who built the mysterious mounds of the great interior valley of our country kinsmen to the Mayas of Yucatan and the other highly cultured peoples of the Mexican plateau? Are the decidedly Maya- and Aztec-like sculptures taken from mounds in the Southeast really witnesses to an […]

  4. Paleontology

    Pretty Pollen

    The pinup of the pollen grain of the month is just one of several intriguing features at this University of Arizona Web site devoted to palynology–the study of the microscopic, decay-resistant remains of plants and animals. The site provides definitions, illustrations, a brief history, a section for kids, and examples of applications in archaeology, paleoecology, […]

  5. Earth

    Earth Views

    The “Global View of the Earth” Web site offers lesson plans and other material for middle school teachers interested in classroom use of images taken by NASA’s Landsat-7 satellite. Students learn about the spacecraft and try to identify “mystery” images–full-color, visible-light images of objects such as airports and bridges, as seen from Landsat more than […]

  6. 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, […]

  7. 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 […]

  8. 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

  9. 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 […]

  10. 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 […]

  11. 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

  12. 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 […]