All Stories by Science News
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From the May 16, 1931, issue
FOUR-MILE-PER-MINUTE WIND POSSIBLE IN NEW TUNNEL An artificial windstorm blowing 240 miles per hour has been found possible in the remarkable wind tunnel recently constructed at Pasadena for the California Institute of Technology. The outfit is a feature of the new Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory. This velocity exceeds the original hopes of the designers. A wind […]
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18933
In “Many refugees can’t flee mental ailments,” Bhutan is greatly maligned. Equating Bhutan’s story with the Cambodian genocide, as the article does, is like equating a Fourth of July firecracker with the atomic bomb. Tiny, Tibetan, Buddhist Bhutan, with a population of only 650,000, is struggling to survive between giants China and India and among […]
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18932
Please explain a curious statement in “A more perfect union.” The article paraphrases Jonas Sandstrom of Uppsala University in Sweden as suggesting that an “endosymbiont’s isolation may be a one-way ticket to extinction. Once the bacterium loses genes . . . it has no way of getting them back. It can’t, therefore, evolve away from […]
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Parasitic Charms
An extensive collection of photographs from around the world demonstrate the full weirdness of parasitic plants. For sheer size, try the Rafflesia, with buds the size of footballs and individual flowers that outsprawl a straw hat. For sci-fi charm, visit the fleshy Hydnora blooms reaching out of the dirt or the crusty lumps of Prosopanche […]
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World Science Fair
Catch glimpses of people, activities, and projects at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, held May 5-11 in San Jose, Calif. A team of students from Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, Calif., created this site as events unfolded at the science fair, from project setup to presentation of the grand awards. Go to: […]
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From the May 9, 1931 issue
PYTHON LIKES NEW HOME: LAYS CLUTCH OF EGGS One of the big pythons in the U.S. Zoological Park recently celebrated her transfer to the more comfortable and homelike quarters of the new reptile house there by laying a clutch of 20 eggs. The picture on the cover of this issue of the SCIENCE NEWS LETTER […]
- Health & Medicine
Anthrax Threat
Anthrax has evolved from a disease that farmers sometimes caught from livestock to a potent biological weapon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta offers a highly accessible Web site that answers basic questions about transmission, treatment, and prevention of anthrax. The site also provides links to Web pages that explain the biology […]
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From the May 2, 1931, issue
HOLDER OF PRIESTLY OFFICE CARVED ABOUT 2400 B.C. Good sculptors, those Sumarians who lived in the land around about Ur of the Chaldees 4,000 years ago! This weeks cover picture shows the upper portion of a broken life-sized statue found at the city of Lagash, north of Ur. The features, finely cut, portray a man […]
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18931
Your article on marine no-take zones overly simplifies a much more complicated problem. The idea that at least some kinds of fish might be more plentiful and larger if they are not harvested over a period of years doesn’t really need much scientific study. However, this benefit is probably limited to specific species. For many […]
- Earth
Sky Cycles
Created at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this Web site features middle-school classroom activities with an atmospheric cycles theme. Topics include climate, greenhouse effect, global climate change, and ozone. Go to: http://www.ucar.edu/learn/
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From the April 25, 1931, issue
FUNGUS BEAUTIFIES SELF WITH FUR-TRIMMED EDGE The picture on the front cover of this weeks SCIENCE NEWS LETTER looks like a fur-trimmed opera cloak for Queen Titania of the fairies, but it is nothing more romantic than a rather common small fungus, Schizophyllum commune, that feeds on dead sticks in the woods. The furry effect […]
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18930
According to “Vitaminlike compound eases rare disorder,” coenzyme Q10 is an “expensive, unregulated supplement.” Unregulated, yes, but expensive? That will come as a surprise to the tens of thousands of consumers who buy it regularly in nutrition stores, discount drug stores, and over the Internet. It may not be as cheap as a vitamin, but […]
