Uncategorized
- Tech
Dances with Robots
Soldiers, rescue workers, and others may attain superhuman strength, speed, and endurance as a result of a new military program to develop powered robotic exoskeletons contoured to a person's body.
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18954
I was surprised that the article “Dances with robots,” while mentioning Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959, Putnam), should speak of “master-slave telerobotic devices.” As any fan of the dean of science fiction knows, these devices are most properly called Waldos. Mark Sicking Spring Shadow, Conn. I am reading Science News on this anniversary of our […]
- Health & Medicine
Glucose control spares arteries in diabetes
Very strict control of blood glucose concentrations helps limit atherosclerosis formation in people with type I, or juvenile-onset, diabetes.
- Animals
Condor chicks hatch in zoo and wild
Newly hatched California condor chicks indicate that reproduction is again taking place in the wild.
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Math fears subtract from memory, learning
In a study of college students, high levels of anxiety about taking mathematics tests interfered with memory processes needed to perform difficult arithmetic problems.
- Animals
Microbe lets mite dads perform virgin birth
A gender-bent mite—in which altered males give birth as virgins—turns out to be the first species discovered to live and reproduce with only one set of chromosomes.
- Earth
Ozone flares with fireworks festivities
Holiday fireworks and sparklers trigger ozone-generating chemical reactions in the lower atmosphere.
- Health & Medicine
Critical Care: Sugar Limit Saves Lives
Strictly controlling blood-sugar concentrations in critically ill patients can reduce deaths by a third.
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From the June 27, 1931, issue
LARGER MERCURY VAPOR ELECTRIC GENERATING UNIT BEING BUILT A new and larger turbine electric generator that will use mercury vapor instead of steam and will consume less fuel than corresponding modern steam plants is being constructed in the General Electric Company plant at Schenectady, N.Y. This 20,000-kilowatt turbine will have twice the output of the […]
- Chemistry
Perfecting Porosity
Researchers are designing novel porous materials that could clean up toxins, store gases, or catalyze difficult chemical reactions.
- Astronomy
An Illuminating Journey
Astronomers are beginning to use the cosmic microwave background, the remnant glow from the Big Bang, in a dramatically different way: Instead of treating it as a snapshot of the early universe, researchers are proposing to employ the radiation as a flashlight that probes the evolution of structure in the universe over its entire 13-billion-year history.
- Health & Medicine
Forget about jet lag, and much more
Airline flight attendants with chronic jet lag have higher stress hormone concentrations and smaller temporal lobes (centers of short-term memory in the brain)than do more rested attendants.
