Science News

All Stories by Science News

  1. 19029

    Your readers need not wait to do less crying in the kitchen. All you have to do is put the onions in the refrigerator for a half hour or in the freezer for 10 minutes. Daniel F. BarightLebanon, Mo. Another solution is to do the chopping outside. I have found that more turbulent, outside air […]

  2. Humans

    From the October 15, 1932, issue

    THE SABER-TOOTH STRIKES The artist has made a sketch of a dramatic scene involving a horselike hornless rhinoceros. It shows the poor animal attacked by a long-tailed saber-toothed tiger. The great cat is pictured as attacking much as a modern tiger or lion sometimes attacks: gripping a hard hold with its forelegs, slashing at its […]

  3. Frog Guts

    A little squeamish about dissecting a frog? Try the online virtual frog dissection at the Froguts Web site. The site also includes multiple-choice tests, lesson plans, and links to other frog pages on the Web. Requires the Flash 6 browser plug-in. Go to: http://www.froguts.com/

  4. 19028

    The picture of the mummified dinosaur was amazing and a bit spooky. It is a great find. Patrick LeaheyGeneva, N.Y.

  5. 19135

    You report that “the sea squirt has the beginnings of a spinal cord, making it a so-called chordate.” That’s the same mistake I fight against each time I teach my zoology class. What makes a sea squirt a chordate is the notochord in the animal’s larval stage. A notochord is a skeletal component, not a […]

  6. 19024

    The most profound consequence of the research in this article is that there is no such thing as “now.” Since consciousness is spread out across the brain, and since those centers of brain activity cannot communicate faster than the speed of light, “now” is not the hard point in time we usually imagine. Rick NorwoodJohnson […]

  7. 19183

    This article seems to contain a few errors. Codons are found on the messenger RNA. Therefore, they can’t contain thymine. They must have uracil, instead. The RNA codon AUG (your ATG) is the only codon for methionine. If it is the “start” codon, how is methionine coded? Nicholas L. Reuter University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio […]

  8. 19182

    I’ve never been a baboon, but I have been a mom, and consequently a mother baboon’s failure to call out to a separated youngster emitting distress sounds is not a bit puzzling to me. If I heard my toddler wailing on the other side of the road, would I call and say, “Don’t worry, mummy’s […]

  9. 19181

    Reading your article, I was struck with a question: Do the oxen form a psychological attachment to their oxpeckers (and vice versa)? One way of finding this out would be to observe whether the oxpeckers remain attached to one ox or are fickle partners. Jeff Leer Fairbanks, Alaska

  10. 19180

    I cannot believe that a clinical trial of a new drug in a field in which there are accepted beneficial therapies would be either proposed as ethical by physicians or accepted by the Food and Drug Administration when containing a control group deprived of that beneficial treatment. For prior approval of the existing beneficial treatment, […]

  11. 19179

    I’m curious. What’s the significance of the planets sharing the same plane? Isn’t that a coincidence? Robert T. DruryLos Angeles, Calif. It could be coincidence, but the plane that roughly defines the planets’ orbits may indicate the orientation of the protoplanetary disk of gas, dust, and ice that originally surrounded the young sun .–R. Cowen

  12. Humans

    From the April 26, 1930, issue

    FLOWERS FROM STEEL The same fascinating sparks that the village children used to watch “flying like chaff from a threshing floor” are now used to save industry thousands of dollars, for they have been found to be an index to the many kinds of modern steels, which differ from one another only slightly in carbon […]