Uncategorized
- Ecosystems
Bird Dilemma: More seabirds killed when boats discard fewer fish
A long-term study of great skuas shows that when fishing fleets discard less fish, birds that scavenge for waste make up for the loss by increasing attacks on other seabirds.
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Neural Aging Walks Tall: Aerobic activity fuels elderly brains, minds
Moderate amounts of regular walking improve brain function and attention in formerly sedentary seniors.
- Humans
From the February 17, 1934, issue
First flight over Mt. Everest, blood tests link American Indians to Siberian tribes, and the discovery of the positron.
- Earth
Desert Life
What is a desert? How many deserts are in North America? This extensive Web site offers information about the desert environment and the unique characteristics that define the beautiful desert landscapes of the U.S. Southwest. It includes images, stories, movie and audio clips, and virtual-reality tours on many desert-related topics, from plants and animals to […]
- Humans
Letters from the Feb. 21, 2004, issue of Science News
Thin skin I find the language of “Thin Skin” (SN: 1/3/04, p.11: Thin Skin) to be judgmental and unscientific. For example, “desert pavement and their biota are wounded by human activity” is neither artistic nor scientific. Such narrow, biased views of ecology have no place in a scientific journal. Boone MoraGarden Valley, Calif. Out with […]
- Math
Hunting e
Of the irrational, transcendental numbers, pi seems to get all the attention. Web sites and books celebrate its quirks and quandaries. Its digits have been computed to 1,241,100,000,000 decimal places. Lagging far behind in the celebrity sweepstakes is the number known as e. Carried to 20 decimal places, e is 2.71828 18284 59045 23536. Only […]
- Humans
From the February 10, 1934, issue
alt=”Click to view larger image”> CZAR’S BOOKS, RARE COSTUMES COME TO PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM Rare archaeological books from the private library of the late Russian czar and Russian peasant costumes centuries old have been received by the University of Pennsylvania Museum. About 125 of the czar’s books, mostly archaeological works, have come to the museum by […]
- Computing
Paint by Pixel
Aaron Hertzmann is both a computer scientist and a painter. Among his art-related programming projects, he has developed a way for computers to refashion images and animations to reflect different painting styles. Other work includes a stretched “canvas” that projects a continually-changing painting of the viewer and a learning-by-example system that animates characters based on […]
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19247
In this article, I read that an orb of a given size, when slightly flattened, will pack more densely than when perfectly round. No kidding? Do you suppose if we were to crush cars into little cubes we could hurl more into a landfill than we could just by driving them over a cliff? What […]
- Physics
Candy Science: M&Ms pack more tightly than spheres
Squashed or stretched versions of spheres snuggle together more tightly than randomly packed spheres do.
- Humans
Letters from the Feb. 14, 2004, issue of Science News
Revealing words “Bookish Math: Statistical tests are unraveling knotty literary mysteries” (SN: 12/20&27/03, p. 392: Bookish Math) skipped one of the most significant methods for analyzing text for authorship. On March 11, 1887, Thomas Corwin Mendenhall reported in Science a straightforward method of plotting word length versus frequency. The beauty of this method is that […]
- Animals
Flesh Eaters: Bees that strip carrion also take wasp young
A South American bee that ignores flowers and collects carrion from carcasses has an unexpected taste for live, abandoned wasp young.
