Science News

All Stories by Science News

  1. Science Past from the issue of November 7, 1959

    Russians release photos of moon’s far side — Russian scientists have released a photograph of the far side of the moon as taken from U.S.S.R. satellite Lunik III. The photograph on the cover of this week’s Science News Letter shows the far side of the moon. Soviet astronomers identify the long solid lines as the […]

  2. Letters

    Sore words I don’t usually write to magazines, and I’ve never written to yours before, though I’ve enjoyed and learned much from it for many years thanks to it being produced in Braille. But I couldn’t let your article on swearing relieving pain [“%$!” makes you feel better,” (SN: 8/1/09, p. 9)] go by. Without […]

  3. Book Review: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

    Review by Laura Sanders.

  4. Book Review: Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style by Randy Olson

    Review by Sid Perkins.

  5. Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych ER by Julie Holland

    A psychiatrist shares anecdotes from her career treating the mentally ill at the nation’s oldest public hospital. Bantam Books, 2009, 308 p., $25. WEEKENDS AT BELLEVUE: NINE YEARS ON THE NIGHT SHIFT AT THE PSYCH ER BY JULIE HOLLAND

  6. Salt Marshes: A Natural and Unnatural History by Judith S. Weis and Carol A. Butler

    A biologist and writer team up to describe human impacts on salt marshes. Rutgers Univ., 2009, 254 p., $23.95. SALT MARSHES: A NATURAL AND UNNATURAL HISTORY BY JUDITH S. WEIS AND CAROL A. BUTLER

  7. The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 12

    The latest volume of Einstein’s collected works, containing hundreds of letters and transcripts of lectures and interviews. Princeton Univ., 2009, 609 p., $125. THE COLLECTED PAPERS OF ALBERT EINSTEIN, VOL. 12

  8. Pluto Confidential: An Insider Account of the Ongoing Battles over the Status of Pluto by Laurence A. Marschall and Stephen P. Maran

    Two astronomers report on the controversies surrounding Pluto’s planethood or lack thereof. BenBella Books, 2009, 223 p., $14.95. PLUTO CONFIDENTIAL: AN INSIDER ACCOUNT OF THE ONGOING BATTLES OVER THE STATUS OF PLUTO BY LAURENCE A. MARSCHALL AND STEPHEN P. MARAN

  9. Armadillo Trail: The Northward Journey of the Armadillo by Stephen R. Swinburne

    The story of an armadillo and her pups introduces young readers to the mammals. Boyds Mills Press, 2009, 32 p., $16.95. ARMADILLO TRAIL: THE NORTHWARD JOURNEY OF THE ARMADILLO BY STEPHEN R. SWINBURNE

  10. More science for science writers

    More dispatches from the 47th annual New Horizons in Science meeting, sponsored by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing and held this year in Austin, Texas.

  11. Science for science writers

    Science News blogs from Austin, Texas, where the 47th annual New Horizons in Science meeting is taking place. Freelance Laura Beil describes how Skip Garner began his accidental journey into scientific misconduct investigation after he developed a computer program that could, as he put it, “help a physicist understand medicine,” he told writers in the audience at the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing symposium. Got milk tolerance? Your ability to digest lactose as an adult is relatively new in the human species. And, said John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides evidence of rapid evolution over the past 10,000 years, Elizabeth Quill reports in this blog from the meeting. Virgil Griffith’s life goal is “to create a machine who feels.” Griffith, a doctoral student at Caltech, isn’t the only one. During his talk, he revealed that turning people into cyborgs is the secret passion of many of his Caltech peers, Rachel Ehrenberg reports. (They contend that they are working on implant devices for the injured bodies of people like Vietnam vets, says Griffith, but if you get them drunk they’ll confess that the real aim is to make cyborgs of us all.) Also, blogging from: Eva Emerson on some new results on longevity without caloric restriction in yeast; freelance Susan Gaidos on a Boston University medical statistician who has devoted lots of time to studying errors in the voting process, and says things can, and do, routinely go wrong; and Lisa Grossman on how mapping fossil fuel emissions may help scientists find where carbon is hiding in the biosphere.

  12. Science Future for October 24, 2009

    November 4–8 Clinicians and researchers meet in San Diego to discuss advances in psychiatric genetics. Visit www.ispg2009.org Through November 21 Watch Gearing Up, a documentary about the FIRST robotics competition. For local listings, see www.gearingupproject.org December 15 Nominations deadline for the Kavli Prizes in nanoscience, neuroscience and astrophysics. Get form at www.kavliprize.no