All Stories by Science News
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From the April 4, 1931 issue
PASCHAL FLOWERS BLOOM ON PRAIRIES OF THE WEST Easter-Tide is remembered in America by two names, one of a place, the other of a flower. When the youth-seeking Ponce de Leon sighted the coast of the New World it was on Easter morning, and accordingly he named the place he had found Pascua Florida, or […]
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18922
“Dyslexia gets a break in Italy” brought to mind a remark I learned in grade school decades ago. It is: In English, the word fish can be spelled ghoti. That’s gh as in tough, o as in women, and ti as in nation: “ghoti” = “fish.” English can be difficult. Norman C. Peterson Sata Monica, […]
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18921
Depression is a common symptom of magnesium deficiency. Heart attacks, including fatal heart attacks, are also a common symptom of magnesium deficiency. It is thus no surprise that depressed people have a higher-than-normal rate of fatal heart attacks. Bernard Rimland Autism Research Institute San Diego, Calif.
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18920
I was disappointed in “Blood relatives.” It ignored the pioneering work by people at the company Somatogen, now known as Baxter Hemoglobin Therapeutics. They first published work on a recombinant hemoglobin for use as a blood substitute in Nature in 1990. Later, they demonstrated definitively that many of the problems associated with blood substitutes were […]
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18919
Your recent article on oxygen deprivation interested me greatly. As a jump pilot (hauling skydivers), I visit moderately high altitudes regularly. On a typical busy day, I may go to 14,000 feet 20 times. Granted that I don’t stay there very long, but I wonder if the harmful effects are cumulative. Peter Danes San Diego, […]
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From the March 28, 1931 issue
PRINCE LION-CUB SPEAKS A WORD FOR HIMSELF Milk-teeth are all he has as yet, and most of his active hours are spent in kittenish play; but let something happen to displease him, and for a moment the lion cub gives a hint of the royal terror that will clothe him when he reaches maturity. The […]
- Computing
Automatic Professor Machine
Check out an amazing, new information-dispensing device at the Web site of technology critic Langdon Winner of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Winner’s Automatic Professor Machine delivers online doctoral degrees without the student ever having to set foot on a college campus. A spoof of the distance-learning craze, the site features a news report, radio interview […]
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18912
As I recall, the Germans tried using diesels to power aircraft, but because diesels were not as responsive as gasoline-powered engines and heavier, they did not progress. That, it seems, was very fortuitous, given this surprising discovery that diesel-exhaust pollution increases with increased altitude. Anibal José da Silva Houston, Texas
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From the March 21, 1931 issue
MUSHROOMS SUDDEN GROWTH FOLLOWS LONG PREPARATION Quick as a mushrooms growth, is the phrase we like to apply to sudden and unexpected developments. An oil town, a stock-market fortune, the reputation of the writer of a hit, are all referred to the mushroom standard of comparison. Yet the mushroom is no creature of magic, not-here […]
- Computing
Making the Macintosh
Interested in computer history? Alex S. Pang of the Stanford University Library has assembled fascinating material from a variety of sources, including papers donated to the university from Apple’s corporate library, to portray the invention and emergence of the Macintosh personal computer. The evolving Web site includes sections on counterculture and computing, the early Macintosh, […]
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18911
This article attributes the low visibility of the book Introductory Physical Science to the publisher’s limited means of promotion. This is only part of the story. Much more serious is the fact that many states’ mandated tests demand such shallow coverage of so many topics that they force bad textbooks on the schools. Uri Haber-Schaim […]
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From the March 14, 1931, issue
NEW WELDED PIPE LINE CARRIES WATER TO SAN DIEGO On the front cover of this weeks SCIENCE NEWS LETTER, the cameraman has caught two electric arc welders tying in an important section of a 19-mile-long steel serpent, 40 inches in diameter in some places and 36 inches in others, that will carry water from reservoirs […]
