50 Years Ago

From the December 28, 1929, issue

YOUTH AND THE SEA “Captain Sylvia,” aged 6 weeks, and her mother, Mrs. J.E. Williamson upon the cover of this week’s issue look at a strange world full of fishes, corals, sharks, morays, and other denizens of the deep. The youthful scientist, symbolic of science itself and its aspirations, was a member of the Field […]

From the June 3, 1932, issue

GENERATOR LOAD DIVIDED FOR BETTER OPERATION Without the pretty girl, this massive stationary winding of a turbine electric generator might appear to be the size of a spool of thread. But contrast emphasizes the machines 83,300 kilovolt-ampere capacity. The black arms are heavily insulated butt-ends of copper bars in which electricity is to be generated. […]

From the May 28, 1932, issue

FLYING ARCHAEOLOGIST MAKES UNIQUE PICTURE RECORD Flying over the far-flung ruins of civilizations, which his own scientific institution is busily exploring from the ground, Charles Breasted of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has obtained 12,000 feet of unique motion picture film, showing the work of “the largest archaeological research organization in the […]

From the May 21, 1932, issue

GENES, ONCE HYPOTHETICAL, NOW SEEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED Genes, the ultimate units in heredity, have been seen and photographed. So declares Dr. John Belling, biologist on the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Genes have hitherto been dealt with as hypothetical entities by biologists, because no one has ever actually seen them. They were like […]

From the May 14, 1932, issue

DOVE ORCHID MAKES FITTING FLOWER FOR WHITSUNDAY Sunday, May 15, is the Feast of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, when many of the churches commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit. In the lands of tropical America, where delicate orchids can be had by anybody, many an imaginative Latin will mingle poetry with his piety as he […]

From the May 7, 1932, issue

MONKEYS GET BALD LIKE MEN It is no longer fair to blame your barber or beautician for that bald spot; nor can you lay your gray hairs onto worry over your childrens naughtiness or your brokers shortsightedness. Getting bald or going gray are just primate traits, like walking on two legs instead of four, according […]

From the April 30, 1932, issue

SPIRAL NEBULA IN ANDROMEDA BORDERED WITH STAR CLUSTERS Tiny flecks of hazy light around the borders of one of the most famous of the spiral nebulae, the one in the constellation Andromeda, are now believed to be great globular clusters of stars–literally swarms of suns crowded like clouds of gnats that hang over the marshes […]

From the April 23, 1932, issue

WELDING OFFERS CAMERA STRIKING FIELD OF BEAUTY By no means a trivial by-product of electric welding is the field of beauty the new art is opening up for photographers. While electricity eliminates the irritating staccato of noisy riveting, the photographer focuses his camera on a glowing scene of shadow and light, man and steel. Such […]

From the April 16, 1932, issue

NEW INDIAN TOMB YIELDS STRIKING ARTIFACT The first picture to reach the United States of one of the most striking art objects recovered from Indian tombs recently opened at Guerrero, Mexico, is shown on the cover of this weeks Science News Letter. The vessel was photographed just as it was taken from the tomb, with […]

From the April 9, 1932 issue

SPIDERS’ EGGS FORM PATTERN LIKE MOSAIC OF PEBBLES Like a rough mosaic of pebbles is the array of spider’s eggs photographed by Cornelia Clarke and reproduced on the cover of this week’s Science News Letter. Although smaller than small pinheads, the enlarging lens brought the eggs up to such apparent size that they were guessed […]

From the April 2, 1932 issue

TELETYPEWRITERS CAN NOW BE USED IN HOME On the cover of this issue of the Science News Letter is shown a portion of the mechanism of the teletypewriter, a hybrid medium of communication. The new teletypewriter service is a telegraph system with telephone methods and typewriting thrown in for luck. It is now possible to […]

From the March 26, 1932, issue

EASTER LILY UNFOLDS TALE TO X-RAY’S PIERCING EYE Ordinarily it is necessary to pull a flower to pieces to find what it is doing at any given moment in its development–and that, naturally, precludes one from following its development any further. One must turn to other flowers, at other stages of their unfolding, and ruin […]