Uncategorized
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19009
I am puzzled at the great concern over the problem of mercury thermometers, as noted in this article. I grant that mercury is a hazard, and I am glad that mercury thermometers are disappearing. But I would think that fluorescent light bulbs are a far more pervasive problem. They also contain a small amount of […]
- Earth
Algae Turn Fish into a Lethal Lunch
Scientists demonstrated that some marine mammals have died from eating fish tainted with a neurotoxic diatom.
- Earth
Most oil enters sea from nonaccidents
Nearly all of the oil entering the marine environment traces not to accidents but to natural seeps and human activities where releases are intentional.
- Astronomy
Cosmic Dawn
New computer simulations suggest that the first stars in the universe were extremely massive and left behind gamma-ray bursts that may already have been detected by telescopes orbiting Earth.
- Health & Medicine
What Activates AIDS?
New studies suggest that a natural process called immune activation—the signaling that alerts immune cells of foreign invaders—plays a key role in explaining why infection with the human immunodeficiency virus progresses to AIDS more quickly in some people than in others.
- Math
A Stranger from Spaceland
“It was the last day of the 1999th year of our era. The pattering of the rain To a Flatlander, a sphere passing through Flatland appears as a line of changing length. had long ago announced nightfall; and I was sitting in the company of my wife, musing on the events of the past and […]
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From the December 28, 1929, issue
YOUTH AND THE SEA “Captain Sylvia,” aged 6 weeks, and her mother, Mrs. J.E. Williamson upon the cover of this week’s issue look at a strange world full of fishes, corals, sharks, morays, and other denizens of the deep. The youthful scientist, symbolic of science itself and its aspirations, was a member of the Field […]
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About Time
To find out the official time, visit the joint Web site of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory. Two ultraprecise clocks contribute to a pool used to define “coordinated universal time.” These two clocks are not supposed to differ by more than one ten-millionth of a second. The site […]
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From the June 3, 1932, issue
GENERATOR LOAD DIVIDED FOR BETTER OPERATION Without the pretty girl, this massive stationary winding of a turbine electric generator might appear to be the size of a spool of thread. But contrast emphasizes the machines 83,300 kilovolt-ampere capacity. The black arms are heavily insulated butt-ends of copper bars in which electricity is to be generated. […]
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Bio Light
Devoted to organisms that chemically generate light, the bioluminescence Web pages from the University of California, Santa Barbara provide vivid images of this phenomenon in all its splendor. The site also furnishes basic information about the chemistry and biology of bioluminescence and provides links to recent research on the topic. Go to: http://lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/
- Physics
Matter waves: Be fruitful and multiply
For the first time, physicists induced atoms to amplify a selected matter wave in a manner analogous to a cascade of photons amplifying the characteristic electromagnetic wave of an optical laser.
- Materials Science
Impurity clouds from all sides now
For the first time, scientists have obtained detailed, three-dimensional images of line defects in steel.
