50 Years Ago

  1. From the March 19, 1932, issue

    EXPLOSIONS USED TO LOCATE OIL FIELDS IN SOUTHWEST A beautiful explosion, so large that the camera could only catch a part of it with sufficient clarity to detail its streaked and billowing effects, is reproduced on the front cover of this week’s Science News Letter. It is one of hundreds of such blasts that have […]

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  2. From the March 12, 1932, issue

    UNEARTH NEW PORTRAIT OF KING TUT’S GIRL-WIFE A new portrait of the girl-wife of that well-known Egyptian pharaoh, Tutankhamon, has been unearthed from the ruins of Tel-el-Amarna, where the Egypt Exploration Society has been excavating. The portrait is a beautiful little head, with exquisitely modeled features. It is less than 2 inches long. Identity of […]

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  3. From the March 5, 1932, issue

    WEIRD LEATHER COSTUMES PROTECT ELECTRIC WORKERS Dressed in the clothes of imagined creatures from a distant planet, these power plant operators open and close the switches of transmission lines that bring power for electric lamp and industrial motor. The costume, a new invention of safety engineers, is designed to protect the wearer from flashes of […]

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  4. From the February 27, 1932, issue

    PUSSY WILLOW Florists shops have long been offering big, beautiful, and expensive wands of pussy willows. But now the willow trees and bushes out of doors are putting forth their own offerings: smaller catkins, perhaps, but with the authentic tang of the wild about them. Harmless, charming, furry wild kittens, beloved of children everywhere! Pussy […]

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  5. From the February 20, 1932, issue

    LIGHT FLOODS MONUMENT FOR CELEBRATION Science and engineering are aiding the Washington Bicentennial celebration, for they have just joined hands to illuminate in a very realistic fashion the famous obelisk that is named for the father of his country. The striking photograph of the shaft and its reflection in the Lincoln Memorial pool shows how […]

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  6. From the February 13, 1932, issue

    TESTS SHOW STEEL COLUMNS STRENGTHENED BY BRICK WALL Steel-frame buildings, from modest structures of just a few floors to the tallest skyscrapers, may be built more economically with the use of less steel as the result of facts discovered by research at the U.S. Bureau of Standards. This study, which was carried out in the […]

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  7. Physics

    From the February 6, 1932, issue

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  8. From the January 30, 1932, issue

    MONTE ALBAN TREASURE MAY SET JEWELRY STYLE The proud inhabitants of Oaxaca, in whose vicinity the Mixtec treasure tomb was found, think they are going to set the worlds jewelry styles. A casual glance at the ornaments and trinkets reveals that archaeology has already influenced modern jewelers. One of the most beautiful objects found in […]

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  9. From the January 23, 1932, issue

    FLOODLIGHTS ILLUMINATE LONDON’S TOWER BRIDGE Light from a new age is cast upon the pointed heights of London’s Tower Bridge by floodlights turned on the structure during recent engineering and scientific celebrations in England. The Tower Bridge is just one of the many structures illuminated. This bridge across the Thames, one of the most famous […]

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  10. Humans

    From the January 16, 1932, issue

    A PHARAOH’S RIGHTHAND MAN Add the name of Ken-Amun, ambitious Egyptian politician, a Pharaoh’s righthand man, to the list of unusual personalities from ancient Egypt. Ken-Amun’s tomb, cut into a rocky hillside in the Valley of the Kings, has been known for almost a century, but has been strangely neglected. Now, it has been thoroughly […]

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  11. From the January 9, 1932, issue

    DR. ABEL OF JOHNS HOPKINS ELECTED NEW AAAS HEAD Dr. John J. Abel, professor of pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, has been elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for 1932. This action was taken at the annual meeting of the Association in New Orleans. Dr. Abel succeeds […]

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  12. From the January 2, 1932 issue

    CONCRETE RIBBONS TO CARRY TRAFFIC OF GREAT HIGHWAY Thin ribbons of concrete arching through the air, that will carry on a 42-foot wide pavement, traffic of one of the countrys chief east-west thoroughfares, the Lincoln highway, are skillfully depicted in this photograph of the George Westinghouse Memorial bridge nearing completion at East Pittsburgh. The arches […]

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