Scientific American Reference Book. A Manual for the Office, Household and Shop
Albert A. Hopkins, A. Russell Bond
The Editor of the Scientific American receives during the year thousands of inquiries from readers and correspondents covering a wide range of topics. The information sought for, in many cases, can not readily be found in any available reference or text-book. It has been decided, therefore, to prepare a work which shall be comprehensive in character and which shall contain a mass of information not readily procured elsewhere. The very wide range of topics covered in the Scientific American Reference Book may be inferred by examining the index and table of contents. This work has been made as nontechnical as the subjects treated of will admit, and is intended as a ready reference book for the home and the office.
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Elaine Morgan says we evolved from aquatic apes
The physics behind raindrops.
If I were to ask you to picture in your head the shape of a raindrop you’d probably think about the standard, idealized almost pear shaped tear drop. This however is no more accurate a depiction of rain as those drawings of hearts or atoms. In reality water flattens out due to the force of the air rushing past and this effect only becomes more noticeable as the size increases. In fact smaller droplets of rain are almost totally spherical but as the size increases they get flatter and wider. Raindrops larger than about 4.5 mm however are torn apart by this force and bulge out the back, being thicker at the bottom edge. This causes them to disperse into smaller raindrops once again until they either hit the ground or join back up with other droplets and the process is repeated.
Your genes
You have your genes to thank – or blame – for your appearance. Genes are your body’s instruction manual. They affect the way you look, your health, and the way your body works.
via: Who I am?
My Soul - Katharine Dowson (2005)
Images of the mind in art and science
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
via: eyemagazine
Human blood cells, SEM
Caption: Human blood cells, coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM). Seen here are platelets (small, roundish) and a neutrophil white blood cell (large, whitish).
Rainbow Moon
Date: 7 Dec 1992
This false-color mosaic was constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo’s imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon in 1989.
The part of the Moon visible from Earth is on the left side in this view. The color mosaic shows compositional variations in parts of the Moon’s northern hemisphere. Bright pinkish areas are highlands materials, such as those surrounding the oval lava-filled Crisium impact basin toward the bottom of the picture. Blue to orange shades indicate volcanic lava flows. To the left of Crisium, the dark blue Mare Tranquillitatis is richer in titanium than the green and orange maria above it. Thin mineral-rich soils associated with relatively recent impacts are represented by light blue colors; the youngest craters have prominent blue rays extending from them.via: NASA
Edward O. Wilson, a three-year-old zoologist in 1932.
Edward O. Wilson’s childhood fascination with insects and other living things matured into an intellectual passion that fired one of the greatest careers in modern science. Wilson made his first major entomological discovery at age 13. By the time he completed graduate school he was already winning recognition as the world’s foremost authority on ants. From his base at Harvard University, he traveled the world, collecting rare specimens and gaining unprecedented insight into the evolution and behavior of these complex creatures.
E.O. Wilson Profile | Biography | Interview | Photo Gallery |
