Notebook
- Tech
Craft Tech
The Craft Technology Group at the University of Colorado, Boulder, interweaves computation with craft materials both new and old. This Web site offers glimpses of innovative projects involving the use of software to design mechanical toys and paper sculptures, embedding computation and behavior in simple objects such as tacks and hinges, developing affordable three-dimensional printing, […]
- Humans
From the October 28, 1933, issue
WEATHERMEN UNWITTINGLY POSE HALLOWEEN PICTURE Not ancient warlocks making weather but modern scientists just making a record of it, unintentionally posed a good Halloween picture on the top of Mount Washington, with the aid of a cat that doesn’t like the wind. The photograph has nothing of the mellowness of autumn about it–quite naturally, since […]
- Physics
Shedding Light on the Infrared
For students and teachers, this NASA-sponsored Web site offers illuminating insights into infrared light. It explains the fundamentals of infrared astronomy, using animations, images, classroom lessons and activities, games, and more. Take a look at infrared views of familiar objects, from Yellowstone’s “Old Faithful” geyser to a pot-bellied pig. Go to: http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/
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From the October 21, 1933, issue
COULD YOU DO THIS AT 18 MONTHS? Could you climb a smooth slide as the baby on the front cover does when you were a year and a half old? Of course not. But perhaps you could have, had you been given the training that 18-month-old Johnny, pictured in one of his favorite exercises, has […]
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Loss of Smell
To many people, the ability to sense all sorts of odors is a normal occurrence and something that they take for granted. Some people, however, do suffer from a loss or disturbance of a sense of smell–a condition known as anosmia. Created by Helen Gatcum and Tim Jacob of Cambridge University, these Web pages provide […]
- Humans
Einstein’s Notes
Caltech and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have made available in an online archive thousands of handwritten notes scrawled by Albert Einstein. The digitized documents, some accompanied by translations, include a wide variety of items, such as a diary Einstein kept during a year-long stay in the United States in 1930 and 1931 and a […]
- Humans
From the October 14, 1933, issue
SOVIET ASCENSION BREAKS WORLD ALTITUDE RECORD Enclosed within the metal shell pictured on the front cover of Science News Letter, three Soviet scientists rose higher above the surface of the earth than man has ever been before, in an ascension from Moscow on September 30. It is the gondola of the Soviet free balloon USSR. […]
- Humans
From the October 7, 1933, issue
ANCIENT MAP SHOWS HOW WORLD LOOKED TO COLUMBUS Startled to find the name Columbus mentioned on an old Turkish map of the Atlantic Ocean, Paul Kahle has subjected the map to closest study, finding on it important new clues to the discovery of America. In a report on his investigations, to appear in the forthcoming […]
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Moral Sense
How do humans throughout the world decide what is right and wrong? Harvard researchers have designed a test, which consists of a series of moral dilemmas, to probe the psychological mechanisms underlying ethical judgments. The online test takes only about 10 minutes, and responses are completely confidential. Go to: http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu/index.html
- Humans
From the September 30, 1933, issue
FIRST GLIMPSES OF A NEW WORLD Dr. George Roemmerts “Microvivarium,” which projects enormously enlarged images of living microscopic plants and animals on a screen, is a prime attraction of the Hall of Science at the Century of Progress. It has given thousands who have never looked through a microscope their first view of the amazing […]
- Humans
Flight Notes
Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine on Dec. 17, 1903. Now, the Library of Congress has prepared a display of items from its extensive collection of the Wright Brothers’ papers. The online exhibit includes photographs, a timeline, numerous documents, and much more. Go to: […]
- Humans
From the September 23, 1933, issue
LEAFY SUCCULENTS SOLVE PROBLEM SET BY DESERT Desert plants have a particularly hard problem to solve, set by that old Sphinx, the desert itself, and if they fail to solve it, the penalty is the same as that exacted in the old Greek myth–they must die. They must spread a sufficient chlorophyll surface to the […]
