Notebook
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From the September 12, 1931 issue
ELEPHANTS JAWBONE SHOWS LIKENESS TO SCOOP SHOVEL Where the idea of the present-day scoop shovel came from is suggested in the illustration on the cover of this weeks Science News Letter. When President Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History received the weird lower jawbone of an ancient Asian elephant, he was […]
- Physics
Caught in a Flash
View the tip of a snapped towel (which moves faster than the speed of sound), then take a look at a bursting water balloon, a collapsing water drop, a tennis ball in mid-collision with a racket, and many other amazing images in this gallery of high-speed photos snapped by high school students. Sorry! This Web […]
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Human Cloning
Did you miss last month’s National Academy of Sciences workshop on scientific and medical aspects of human cloning? You can listen to the recorded presentations via RealPlayer (use the links at Workshop Agenda) and view the accompanying slides (see Speaker Presentations). Go to: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/COSEPUP/Workshop_Agenda.html –updated 8/26/03–VM.
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From the September 5, 1931, issue
SEEING EYE TO EYE WITH A WHITE WASP The medieval Japanese, who sometimes closed up the fronts of their helmets with ferocious metal masks painted with vivid war paint, knew the right psychology for hand-to-hand encounters. It is much more disconcerting to be confronted with an immobile, wholly artificial hobgoblin face than to see that […]
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From the August 29, 1931, issue
HUGE GENERATORS YIELD BEAUTY TO PHOTOGRAPHER Throbbing electric generators, the machines that are the heart of the great system supplying light and power to more than 120 millions, are odd and beautiful subjects for the talented photographer. In the picture on the cover, Rittase of Philadelphia has caught the spirit of one of the largest […]
- Tech
Reading Faces
Facial expressions can convey emotional nuances that words fail to communicate. Researcher Terrence Sejnowski has developed a computer program that analyzes images of human faces, purportedly matching the skills of professionals trained to read fleeting expressions of emotion. Learn more in an online article from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s HHMI Bulletin and at the […]
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Door to Antiquity
The Phimai temple complex in Thailand was an important Khmer economic, religious, and military center about 1,000 years ago. Richard M. Levy of the University of Calgary has created an elaborate computer reconstruction of this historic site, allowing visitors to wander the complex without traveling all the way to Thailand. Go to: http://www.phimai.ca/
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From the August 22, 1931, issue
THE GIRL ON THE COVER Her name is Janet Penserosa. She is about four years old and her home is at the New York Zoological Park. And now she can claim the distinction of being the first female gorilla to survive in Gothams animal center. Not only that, but she is probably the only gorilla […]
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Forest in the Clouds
See whether BatCam catches a tropical bat visiting a banana, or review QuetzelCam highlights for a murky but impressive view of how such a long-tailed bird jams its plumage into a nestbox. Or, if the cameras aren’t picking up anything in particular, visitors can listen to short recorded commentaries from such denizens as prong-billed barbets […]
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From the August 15, 1931, issue
ANOTHER TEMPLE TO THE WIND GOD Near the little Indian village of Prairieville–the Mexican name is Calixtlahuaca–archaeologists have made a rare and unusual discovery. They have found one of those circular temples to the God of the Wind, seen by the soldiers of Cortez, but not one of which was ever afterward found on the […]
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From the August 8, 1931 issue
TWO ARISTOCRATIC LADIES EMERGE FROM RETIREMENT There is something about newly-emerged silkworm moths that makes one think of the ladies of Cathay or Cipangu, long ago and far away, clothed in silk spun by ancestors of todays silk worms. In the cover picture of this weeks Science News Letter, Cornelia Clarke has made an admirable […]
- Astronomy
Anybody Out There?
This elaborate Web site brings together a wide variety of resources devoted to the question of life in the universe. Mounted by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and other European agencies, the site serves as home base for a competition aimed at eliciting responses from European students to the possibility of extraterrestrial life. […]
