50 Years Ago
- Humans
From the December 3, 1932, issue
“QUICKER’N A WINK” Quick as a wink is a great deal too slow. This proverbial epitome of speed is beaten a dozen times over by the newest trick in scientific high-speed photography, which can take 13 “frames” of motion pictures of a human eye during the fortieth of a second it spends in getting shut. […]
- Humans
From the June 7, 1930, issue
COMET MAY CAUSE METEORIC DISPLAY If you watch the sky during the nights of early June, you may be treated to an unusual display of meteors, or “shooting stars.” For comet 1930d, as the astronomers call the new visitor to the heavens discovered by the Germans Schwassmann and Wachmann, is expected to cause a meteoric […]
- Humans
From the November 26, 1932, issue
BOYS WORSE OFFENDERS To aid the harassed parents of temperish youngsters, Dr. Florence L. Goodenough of the Institute of Child Welfare, University of Minnesota, has made a scientific study of anger in young children–what are the immediate causes of outbursts, what are the underlying causes, what methods are commonly used to suppress it, and what […]
- Humans
From the May 31, 1930, issue
A PHARAOH’S TOMB The picture on the cover of this week’s SCIENCE NEWS-LETTER shows how an archaeologist masters the “human fly” trick when he must measure the stones that form the sloping walls of a pharaoh’s tomb. The scene is the famous pyramid at Meydum, Egypt, supposedly built by King Snefru. The Museum of the […]
- Humans
From the November 19, 1932, issue
NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY IS AWARDED DR. LANGMUIR The award of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Dr. Irving Langmuir, the General Electric Research Laboratory chemist, adds laurels to a system of investigation of nature’s secrets as it recognizes a great scientist. Langmuir has never been a mere inventor or applier of knowledge to […]
- Humans
From the May 24, 1930, issue
GRASSHOPPERS THREATEN UNITED STATES Grasshoppers threaten to wreak heavy damage to grain and forage crops in Montana and the Dakotas this year. There were many hoppers in these states, and in parts of Texas, last year, and the eggs they laid are now hatching in large numbers. If climatic and other conditions favor the growth […]
- Humans
From the November 12, 1932, issue
FIRST WELDED PENSTOCK BUILT IN CALIFORNIA Welding, an abundant source of beautiful photographs, furnishes another picture for the front cover of the Science News Letter this week; but beauty was not sufficient reason for its prominence in the cover position. The picture was taken within a welded pipe, one-fourth-mile long, tilted up a mountainside at […]
- Humans
From the November 5, 1932, issue
FIELD MUSEUM VISITORS SEE BIT OF ABYSSINIA Visitors to Chicago can make an effortless side trip to the wilds of Abyssinia by walking down the Carl Akeley Memorial Hall of African Animals in the Museum of Natural History. At the end, a remarkable new group of African mammals has been arranged so as to give […]
- Humans
From the May 17, 1930, issue
POLISH RHINOCEROS One of the most interesting of recent finds in paleontology has been the complete carcass of a Pleistocene rhinoceros, unearthed in an abandoned mine in the Starunia region in Poland. Skin, hair muscles, and all other tissues were well preserved, owing to the sealing up of the monster in a kind of oily […]
- Humans
From the October 29, 1932, issue
THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT RIVALS AT MOUSE-CATCHING One of the favorite riddles of childhood was, “Spell ‘mousetrap’ in three letters”; and the answer was “C-A-T.” With even more appropriateness, the answer might have been “O-W-L,” for the Owl is an even better mousetrap than the Pussycat, besides being somewhat more restrained in the matter […]
- Humans
From the May 10, 1930, issue
CANNON-BALL TREE The strange growth represented on the cover of this issue of the SCIENCE NEWS-LETTER is not a freak grapefruit tree. It is the normal method of flowering and fruiting of the cannon-ball tree, a member of the monkey-pot family found in the forests of South America. Its fruiting branches always grow out of […]
- Humans
From the October 22, 1932, issue
SUN, MOON AND STARS IN THE MOVIES Joshua, it is recorded, commanded the sun and the moon to stand still and they obeyed him. In this modern Yankee land and age of hustle, we are much less interested in making things stand still than in making them move faster. Present-day Joshuas would be more likely […]
