All Stories by Science News
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Wondering About
Stimulating scientific curiosity is one aim of questions posed at the “Did You Ever Wonder. . ?” Web page, produced by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Sample questions: How would you rebuild the surface of a cell, and how can you carve with light? Answers to the questions, colorfully illustrated and presented in language accessible to […]
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19045
The methane and carbon monoxide released during charcoal production have short atmospheric lifetimes compared with that of fossil fuel carbon dioxide. In the long run, the net effect of charcoal on the climate is nil because the wood used to produce charcoal was formed from carbon dioxide by photosynthesis. Recommending that nations convert from charcoal […]
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18980
Everyone seems to agree that the Tyrannosaurus rex Sue was seriously debilitated with perhaps a lifelong lameness. Peter L. Larson attributes her survival to care and feeding by group members. Is there evidence of group care for the injured among reptiles of any era? Might Sue’s survival be due not to group care but simply […]
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18979
The work in this article does show nonlinearity of cell damage from alpha radiation in the dose range studied, but the lowest dose studied (5 percent of all cell nuclei hit) is probably several orders of magnitude above the mean lethal dose for any organism. The researchers need to look at linearity through the dose […]
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19044
The discussion of photon entanglement in this article invokes the debatable premise that physical facts are not real unless they are observed. The article’s own glove metaphor provides a perfect counterexample. Suppose I receive a package of gloves (entangled particles) from a glove factory (particle generator), each glove wrapped individually. I keep one and send […]
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Live from Antarctica
Mixing live Webcasts with interactive presentations, San Francisco’s Exploratorium documents a journey to Antarctica. Team members interview scientists, dive and film underwater, climb a volcano, and visit a vast frigid desert. The Web site also features reference material on a variety of topics, including how fish adapt to icy waters, and views of the continent’s […]
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From the December 5, 1931, issue
PROTECTION EXTENDED NEARLY EXTINCT TEDDY BEARS Koalas, known colloquially in Australia as native bears, real, live teddy bears in soft, plushlike fur, have lately become the objects of special solicitude, both official and private, in the far island-continent that is their home. For several generations nobody paid any more attention to them than Americans pay […]
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19043
The article was disappointing on two grounds. First, it was poorly researched, quoting numerous lawyers for farming interests opposed to the Endangered Species Act. Second, it failed to note that most of the growing need for water (as well as virtually all other resources) is closely linked to human population growth that is out of […]
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Sky Survey
The SkyServer provides public access to Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. Learn more about the SDSS project, which aims to map the universe, and browse images and spectra of celestial objects. Take a look at the atlas of “famous places” in the sky. Go to: http://skyserver.sdss.org/.
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From the November 28, 1931, issue
ACTION OF STEEL UNDER STRESS REVEALED IN WRITING ON SAND How solid steel softens and flows like wax when compressed or stretched is being shown to the naked eye by Dr. A. Nadai at the Research Laboratories of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, at East Pittsburgh, Pa. In his new apparatus, a beam of […]
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19042
The brief article on the discovery of sheets of melted sand in Australia mentioned several possible sources of the heat that produced this material, but it failed to mention the most probable source–the impact of a comet on the upper atmosphere. The nature of comets is that when they encounter an atmosphere of significant density […]
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Wind Chill Update
The National Weather Service has revised its formula for calculating wind chill. These Web pages feature an explanation of the changes, a new wind chill chart relating temperature and wind speed, and a handy wind chill calculator. Go to: http://205.156.54.206/om/windchill/.
