Notebook

Health & Medicine

Cooking Science

The Exploratorium’s “Science of Cooking” Web pages offer all sorts of advice on how to improve your cooking–with a pinch of science. Information, recipes, and activities focus on spices, bread, meat, eggs, and more. Experience the thrill of pickle making and learn about a zesty dish called kimchi. Explore the science of cooking your holiday […]

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 […]

Archaeology

Digging into Ancient Texts

For both scholars and amateur archaeologists, the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative Web site offers fascinating glimpses of a distant past. Visitors can view images of thousands of carefully catalogued cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia. The texts include early creation myths, legal codes, medical prescriptions, and recipes for beer. Many are more mundane–ledgers, deeds, receipts, and lists […]

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 […]

Plants

X-rayed Flowers

For new insights into the delicate architecture of flowers, take an X-ray view. Albert G. Richards, who taught dental radiography at the University of Michigan, presents a gallery of unfamiliar views of familiar flowers, from the hidden archways of an iris to the complex plumbing of columbine spurs. Go to: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~agrxray/gallery.html

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 […]

Earth

Timely Climate

Science educators at the University of Colorado and the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder have designed an online tool that lets users study climate change and variability on different time scales–from daily fluctuations to cyclic changes with periods that span 100,000 years. Focusing on climatic processes and specific climate events, each time-scale category has […]

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 […]

Health & Medicine

Cancer Net

Cancer.gov is a huge compendium of information on cancer assembled by the National Cancer Institute. You can find out the characteristics of different cancers, ponder treatment options, peruse statistics on cancer incidence, and check out support groups, coping strategies, and much more. The site offers access to scientific papers and lectures, along with a search […]

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 […]

Health & Medicine

A Most Dreadful Pest

Yellow fever was a deadly scourge that had a devastating effect on lives and economies throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This engrossing Web exhibit features historical documents from the Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection at the University of Virginia. It focuses on the work of the Reed Commission, which proved that the Aedes aegypti […]

Humans

From the May 3, 1930, issue

MOON’S SHADOW AT ECLIPSE PHOTOGRAPHED Clouds over the sun broke away at Camptonville, Yuba County, California, two minutes before the total phase of the solar eclipse of the sun. Only the lightest haze remained, and the observations planned by the various expeditions located there were carried through successfully. The Lick Observatory-Crocker expedition under the direction […]