Notebook
- Computing
Automatic Professor Machine
Check out an amazing, new information-dispensing device at the Web site of technology critic Langdon Winner of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Winner’s Automatic Professor Machine delivers online doctoral degrees without the student ever having to set foot on a college campus. A spoof of the distance-learning craze, the site features a news report, radio interview […]
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From the March 21, 1931 issue
MUSHROOMS SUDDEN GROWTH FOLLOWS LONG PREPARATION Quick as a mushrooms growth, is the phrase we like to apply to sudden and unexpected developments. An oil town, a stock-market fortune, the reputation of the writer of a hit, are all referred to the mushroom standard of comparison. Yet the mushroom is no creature of magic, not-here […]
- Computing
Making the Macintosh
Interested in computer history? Alex S. Pang of the Stanford University Library has assembled fascinating material from a variety of sources, including papers donated to the university from Apple’s corporate library, to portray the invention and emergence of the Macintosh personal computer. The evolving Web site includes sections on counterculture and computing, the early Macintosh, […]
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From the March 14, 1931, issue
NEW WELDED PIPE LINE CARRIES WATER TO SAN DIEGO On the front cover of this weeks SCIENCE NEWS LETTER, the cameraman has caught two electric arc welders tying in an important section of a 19-mile-long steel serpent, 40 inches in diameter in some places and 36 inches in others, that will carry water from reservoirs […]
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Urchins of the Seas
If you haven’t really been paying attention for the last 450 million years or so of Earth’s history, London’s Natural History Museum offers a tidy way to catch up with a diverse, venerable group of marine invertebrates known as echinoids. Spectacular color images highlight important distinguishing characteristics of each type of sea urchin. Find out […]
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From the March 7, 1931, issue
CANYON DE CHELLY NOW NATIONAL MONUMENT A famous canyon of the West, with ancient Indian ruins under the shelter of its thousand-foot red walls, has been given the status of a National Monument, by an act of Congress recently signed by the President. This is the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, with its tributaries, Canyon […]
- Tech
Flying Leap
In the history of human flight, first came the daring tinkerers who gave wings to the pent-up human desire to soar. In the wake of their successes came a remarkable proliferation of flying machines, spacecraft, and colorful characters. At this Web site, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics celebrates these achievements with an annotated […]
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From the February 28, 1931, issue
CAMERA CATCHES RATTLER’S SINISTER BEAUTY Photographing a rattlesnake is not the idea most of us would have of a healthy outdoor sport, especially when it is necessary to stand almost on top of the coiled and angry reptile to get a really good picture. But Walter E. Flowers of Spokane once let his picture–getting enthusiasm […]
- Plants
Lichen Lovelies
Should anyone dismiss lichens as so much gray-green crust, send the detractor to the lichen glamour shots in this Web site’s portrait gallery. The lush photography details shapes from goblets to anchors and colors from blue to neon Lycra-pants lemon. Other images illustrate the importance of lichens for other creatures (see the flying squirrel nest) […]
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From the February 21, 1931, issue
WHAT BABIES THINK ABOUT What are baby’s secret thoughts? Babies understand what is said long before they are able to speak, psychologists have discovered. Wherefore, parents are reminded to think before they talk in front of even very young infants and to count to 10, or 110, before indulging in a family tiff while the […]
- Physics
The Atoms Family
Dracula doesn’t want to suck your blood. He wants you to enter his online library and learn about the properties of light, waves, and particles. Here at “The Atoms Family” Web pages, created by the Miami Museum of Science, Dracula and four other silver-screen ghouls invite Web surfers into their laboratories to try out physics […]
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From the February 14, 1931, issue
SMALL CHANGES OF SUN’S HEAT CONTROL WEATHER ON EARTH The sun when it radiates heat and light to Earth also broadcasts information that can be used to foretell the weather here on Earth. Dr. C.G. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, after more than two decades of solar observation, announced today through the medium of […]
