50 Years Ago
- Tech
Self-driving cars are not a thing of the past
Engineers have not given up on self-driving cars. The focus has shifted from a mechanical approach to using batteries and GPS.
- Life
Polio could return after near eradication
Polio was considered eliminated in the United States by 1979, but since then vaccination rates have slipped, prompting concerns about reemergence.
- Cosmology
Revamping the size of the universe
Despite new telescopes and technology, no one knows whether the universe is infinitely large or even if what has been observed is the only universe that exists.
- Science & Society
Anti-leukemia vaccine reported hope of future
Fifty years ago, Science News Letter reported on the promise of a vaccine to prevent leukemia. No preventive vaccine has come to pass, but leukemia vaccines as treatments has yielded promising results.
- Tech
Animated movies made by computer
A 17-minute animated movie made with a computer in 1964 took 2,000 hours of film processing and cost $600 per minute. The 2013 animated film Frozen cost about $1.5 million per minute to make.
- Science & Society
Millions of working mamas
It has been a long time since millions of American women working outside the home was big sociological news. Women are now 47 percent of the U.S. workforce.
- Tech
English Channel tunnel
First proposed in 1802 as a tunnel for horse-drawn carriages, the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, was built starting in 1987 and opened in 1994.
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- Psychology
Beatles reaction puzzles even psychologists
From the February 29, 1964, issue: Psychologists are as puzzled as parents over the explosive effect the Beatles are having on American teen-agers.
- Planetary Science
Moon like blue cheese?
The lunar surface turns out to have more grit than scientists thought.
- Planetary Science
Mars ‘air’ found thinner
Readers get an update on the Red Planet's atmosphere and how new probes land there with parachutes.
- Astronomy
“Black holes” in space
Science News Letter was the first publication to use the term in print in 1964.
