Svelte dodos, cloned magnolias, pet rocks of venerable age, and buckyballs. In this season of lists, here is one more. Ten of the funkiest, funniest, and just plain foolish science stories of 1990. If nothing else, they prove science has a human face.
Articles with 1990
A modern reconstruction of the extinct dodo • Photo by Michael Coghlan (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Home is where the heart is
Remember this old riddle? A man leaves his house for a walk. He walks a mile due south, a mile due east, and a mile due north, and finds he is back at his house. What is the man’s name?
Photo by Rad Pozniakov on Unsplash
For all lovers of the night
The January 1991 issue of “Sky & Telescope” is on the newsstands and in the mailboxes. With this issue, the Cambridge-based astronomy magazine kicks off a celebration of its 50th year of publication.
Astronaut Mark C. Lee floating 130 miles above the Earth • NASA
Einstein just said ‘No’
Most of us have seen television images of astronauts floating in space.
Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash
Big quake prediction wasn’t completely silly, but don’t hold your breath
Are you ready for the Big One?
Collected beetle specimen • Natural History Museum, London (CC BY 2.0)
Earth’s most diverse creatures
I’ve seen the British Crown Jewels on display at the Tower of London. I once visited an exhibit of gem-encrusted Easter eggs created for the Russian Czars by Peter Carl Fabergé, the finest jeweler of Europe. I’ve browsed wide-eyed among the treasures at Tiffany’s.
“Saint Cecilia and an Angel“ by Orazio Gentileschi and Giovanni Lanfranco
Universal harmonies
Late night, candlelight, bottle of wine. Outside, the stars of Orion high in the sky. Mars blazes brightly between the horns of Taurus. The Pleiades twinkle. On the stereo, a favorite piece of music, Henry Purcell’s “Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day 1692.”
A physicist at play (Public Domain)
Scientists say what they do is work, but we know better
“Ants do not play.” That’s what Harvard entomologists Bert Holldobler and E. O. Wilson say in their monumental new work “The Ants.”
Photo by Ruslan Zh on Unsplash
If the key fits, you’ll smell it
An old vaudeville joke goes like this:
“I’ve got a goat without a nose.”
“You’ve got a goat without a nose? How does it smell?”
“Awful.”
Unidentified victim (left) of the Tuskegee study • U.S. National Archives (Public Domain)
Look ahead, but don’t forget the shameful past
The story broke on July 26, 1972. Jean Heller of the Associated Press blew the whistle on what may be the most despicable episode of racism in the history of American science.