All Stories by Science News
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From the October 17, 1931, issue
MATERNAL CARES MULTIPLY WITH COMING OF COLD Winter has breathed a hint of its coming already, in puffs of frosty air that make us forget the heat of summer that is gone, even of the unseasonable hot spell of early September. But the coming of the cold bodes only ill for the cold-blooded creatures of […]
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Celebrating Mole Day
Ready to party? If you’re familiar with Avogadro’s number, 6.02 x 1023, you can join the celebration of Mole Day on Oct. 23 from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m. Check out the Web site of the National Mole Day Foundation for a history of this event and other tidbits from the not-so-furry realm of chemistry, […]
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19018
Couched in language peppered with mays, the article suggests that we are all being poisoned with PBDEs from sewage sludge applied to farmland. However, sludge with high concentrations of volatile organics isn’t qualified in most jurisdictions of which I am aware for land application. It’s usually sent to a landfill or incinerated. Couches and chair […]
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Red, White, and Algal
Once you’ve seen the White House and the Washington Monument, either in person or virtually, spare a minute for another national treasure: the United States Algal Collection. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History offers a bite-size introduction to the collection’s tens of thousands of specimens. The Web site describes each of the major […]
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Special Sleep Issue : PDF Download page
All files are saved as PDFs. Please download Adobe’s Acrobat Reader to view these files. Sleep Special : Complete PackageHigh Quality (17MB) | Low Quality (2MB) The Why of sleep (Tina Hesman Saey) / All Kinds of Tired (Susan Milius)High Quality (6.7MB) | Low Quality (1.1MB) Sleep gone awry (Laura Sanders)High Quality (2.5MB) | Low […]
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From the October 10, 1931, issue
X-RAYS FIND NEW BEAUTIES FOR STUDENTS OF FLOWERS Searching the secrets of a flowers heart acquires new esthetic significance at least, and may become of importance in plant physiology and anatomy, too, through an X-ray technique developed by Mrs. Hazel Engelbrecht of Des Moines. It is not the first time that X rays have been […]
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19017
Thank you for your update of the antics of those madcap scientists who continue to very creatively search for “dark matter.” Their frantic quest seems more and more like a comedy of the absurd. Exotic theories such as of “cold dark matter” have now been joined by desperate, contrived fantasies of “self-interacting” and “just warm […]
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18940
In your article you refer to imploding “air bubbles” that are produced by shrimp. However, these cavities, which are formed by cavitation, are filled with water vapor, not air. As the shrimp claws move rapidly through the water, a low-pressure area is formed behind the claws. If the pressure is below the vapor pressure of […]
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18962
I just read the article and I’m dying to know what motivated the patient to undergo such an experimental (transatlantic) form of an otherwise routine surgery. Any info available? Henry Jones Baton Rouge, La.Her doctors say the patient was simply interested in advancing medical science and that she knew that several surgeons were standing by […]
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18961
I detect a blind spot in this article. Theorists were quick to offer explanations of why the fine-structure constant might have been different 12 billion years ago. But no one thought to question the chain of reasoning that led to that conclusion. We know that quasar spectra are drastically redshifted during their multibillion-year journey to […]
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18969
If, as it appears from “Ill winds,” dust storms are so important, and if they can be tracked from space, it would seem as though the weather bureaus should give dust storm warnings, as they do for hurricanes, tornados, and thunderstorms. It might be difficult to get across to government bureaus that this is important, […]
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From the October 3, 1931 issue
A SEA-GOING LIZARD FROM GALAPAGOS When Darwin, as a young naturalist just out of school, visited the Galpagos islands, he saw a number of things that helped to crystallize and precipitate in his mind the concept, already seeded there, that later revolutionized all biology and much of philosophy. Not the least provocative of speculation was […]
