Science News

All Stories by Science News

  1. 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 […]

  2. 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 […]

  3. 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. […]

  4. 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/

  5. 19071

    This article would better have been titled “Deprivation of dietary antioxidants leads to selective tumor inhibition.” The issue of antioxidants and cancer is an area of controversy, but the great preponderance of literature on this subject supports the use of antioxidants as sole therapy and with conventional oncologic care. These effects have had limited usefulness […]

  6. 19064

    I found this article enlightening. However, it should be noted that similar effects can be obtained at slower speeds using a towel in a locker room. Alan UnellLa Crescenta, Calif. The story ended by mentioning that researchers would be continuing to work on a computer model. Here’s some additional information you may wish to pass […]

  7. 19008

    Typically, prescriptions come from pharmacies with warnings of harmful interactions with other drugs. However, in this article, pediatricians from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia report a dearth of information about safety or effectiveness of the stimulant Ritalin for kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder also being given nonstimulant psychoactive drugs. In southeastern Virginia, a pediatric psychologist found […]

  8. FREE Offer to Science News Subscribers

    FREE Offer to Science News Subscribers.

  9. 19007

    Immersive visualization environments such as CAVES can’t function without graphics supercomputers. Your article omitted the unifying factor behind all of its examples: the supercomputing power that made these environments possible. SGI is the company that provides the computer power behind the installations cited in the article. Chodi McReynolds, SGIMountain View, Calif.

  10. From the May 28, 1932, issue

    FLYING ARCHAEOLOGIST MAKES UNIQUE PICTURE RECORD Flying over the far-flung ruins of civilizations, which his own scientific institution is busily exploring from the ground, Charles Breasted of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has obtained 12,000 feet of unique motion picture film, showing the work of “the largest archaeological research organization in the […]

  11. Health & Medicine

    Sleep Time

    The International Sleep Medicine Association has created a Web site that brings together a wide variety of information sources concerning sleep health and sleep disorders. It includes access to online video lectures on various aspects of sleep, chat rooms and message boards, and links to news stories. Go to: http://www.1sleep.com/

  12. 19063

    This article assumes that changes in the way the brain handles verbal responses are due to an inevitable “physical maturation.” I wonder to what extent these brain changes (and many others) are a side effect of literacy and what exactly are the trade-offs for learning how to read and write. This study could be made […]