All Stories by Science News
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Space Day
Flashy graphics, interactive games, puzzles, contests, and much more await young visitors to the Space Day Web site. On that day, a Webcast introduces children to the challenges of working and living in space and the future of space exploration. Go to: http://www.spaceday.com/
- Humans
From the October 8, 1932, issue
AUTUMN BRINGS NOBILITY EVEN TO CORNFIELD WEEDS Autumn is the time of the Truce of God. Even as a beggar may assume a certain dignity when he is about to die, so the commonest weeds often take on beauty when all things pause to make last salute to the retreating sun, before the hora novissima […]
- Health & Medicine
A Prized Worm
This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine went to researchers who pioneered the use of the tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans as an animal model for exploring basic processes involved in the development and behavior of multicellular organisms. Learn more about the remarkable C. elegans from a Vanderbilt University news feature about this “elegant worm” […]
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19134
Are we breaking the laws of thermodynamics? I often wonder, in discussions of hydrogen as fuel, how one can provide energy to split water to get hydrogen and oxygen, then react them together as fuel, and expect ever to get a net gain in energy. Tom OstwaldUniversity of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, Calif. The media have lately […]
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19096
The Japanese have developed an “artificial shark-fin machine” that produces a product quite similar in texture to the real thing. It’s being used in restaurants in Hong Kong. Let’s hope people’s tastes change before it is too late for the sharks. P.W.L. KwanBoston, Mass.
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19095
In doing your usual excellent job of presenting information in interesting and lighthearted ways, you implied that bug zappers control mosquitoes. In fact, bug zappers don’t attract mosquitoes and therefore kill very few of them. They do kill large numbers of harmless and even beneficial insects, including pollinators and insects such as the crane fly, […]
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19119
Regarding the discovery of the dinosaur heart with the single aorta, your readers should note that this morphology is more likely to be related to high blood pressure than metabolic rate per se. The typical reptilian heart, with its incompletely divided ventricle and double aorta, is quite functional at separating oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. The […]
- Humans
From the April 19, 1930, issue
TRAVEL TO THE MOON BY THE YEAR 2050 By the year 2050, Earth-dwellers will probably be able to travel to the moon and to communicate with their terrestrial home by telephoning over a beam of light. They will get there by traveling in a rocket ship at a speed of some 50,000 miles an hour, […]
- Tech
Engineering Top 20
Airplanes, telephones, refrigerators, and spacecraft are among the life-changing technological accomplishments highlighted at the National Academy of Engineering’s Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century Web site. A variety of illustrations, a brief history, and a timeline of important landmarks accompany each entry. Go to: http://www.greatachievements.org/
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19094
The scientists in this article may want to adapt their solar concentrator for a more prosaic use: cooking. In the early 1970s, I was involved in a project to build a self-sufficient dwelling that drew solely on the wind and sun for its power. We looked into using fiber optics to transmit solar energy to […]
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19093
Cornell University entomologist Jeffrey G. Scott sees a cockroach contraceptive as still being a long way off. He may wish to investigate such a product that has been very effective and on the market for years. I can personally attest to its effectiveness. The common “flea bomb” that one gets from a veterinarian–the kind that […]
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19118
As a former director of engineering of a defense-products company, I’m very aware of the explosive nature of sodium azide. I know that there have been serious explosions in industries (including the airbag industry) that use metal azides. A few reasons sodium azide may have been selected for use in airbags are it releases gas […]
