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All Stories by Science News
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Octopus by Jennifer A. Mather, Roland C. Anderson and James B. Wood
An in-depth look reveals the uncanny smarts and elegant adaptations of these eight-armed wonders. OCTOPUS Timber Press, 2010, 208 p., $25.95.
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The Dog Who Couldn’t Stop Loving by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Not just an animal lover’s tale, this book looks at recent scientific research on how humans evolved to care for canine companions. THE DOG WHO COULDN’T STOP LOVING BY JEFFREY MOUSSAIEFF MASSON Harper, 2010, 249 p., $25.99.
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The Music Instinct by Philip Ball
A journalist draws on neuroscience, anthropology and philosophy to explore the universal human experience of music. THE MUSIC INSTINCT BY PHILIP BALL Oxford Univ. Press, 2010, 452 p., $29.95.
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The Man Who Invented the Computer by Jane Smiley
The best-selling author tells a quirky tale of John Atanasoff, an Iowa physics professor who in the 1930s pursued the dream of faster calculations. THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE COMPUTER BY JANE SMILEY Doubleday, 2010, 256 p., $25.95.
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Portraits of the Mind by Carl Schoonover
From hand-drawn sketches to high-tech views of single neurons, a neuroscientist unpacks the visual history of brain imaging. PORTRAITS OF THE MIND BY CARL SCHOONOVER Abrams, 2010, 239 p., $35.
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Letters
Underground particle hunts The dark matter experiments described in “Mining for missing matter” (SN: 8/28/10, p. 22) sound almost identical to those looking for neutrinos. Both are placed deep underground to help screen out background radiation, especially neutrons. How do particle hunters differentiate between neutrino hits and those by the putative dark matter particles? Also, […]
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Science Future for October 23, 2010
October 28 – 30 National Science Teachers Association holds its Kansas City area conference on science education. Go to www.nsta.org/conferences/2010kan November 1 Slated launch date for shuttle Discovery’s final spaceflight. See www.nasa.gov/missions November 5Nomination deadline for the 15th Annual Carnegie Science Awards. Go to www.carnegiesciencecenter.org
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Science Past from the issue of October 22, 1960
WORLD TV VIA SATELLITES SET AT $170,000,000 — Fifty improved courier-type communications satellites would provide world-wide telephone and television facilities for a mere $170,000,000: $100,000,000 for the satellites and $70,000,000 for the ground stations. These are the figures the American Telephone and Telegraph Company estimated for the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. Without the […]
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Letters
Music on the mind Common experience confirms that music serves language (“A mind for music,” SN: 8/14/10, p. 17). A person unfamiliar with, say, the musical South Pacific has only to listen to its songs a few times to sing the lyrics from memory. Another who tries to memorize the lyrics by just hearing them […]
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Humans
Swedish academy awards
As Nobel season opens, one researcher looks back on a century of steadily increasing U.S. dominance.