“It takes guts to demote a planet that many people
claim to love.” — MIKE BROWN, 2006
on the Indonesian island of
Flores (10/30/04, p. 275).
microRNAs ( 8/15/09, p. 8).
2005 | Quark-gluon plasma
Physicists create a quark-gluon plasma, the primordial
matter of the young universe;
surprisingly, it is a liquid, not
a gas (4/23/05, p. 259 ).
2009 | All about Ardi
A 4.4-million-year-old
partial female skeleton
found in Africa offers the
closest look yet at
Ardi-pithecus ramidus, right
(10/24/09, p. 9).
Neandertal genetic instruction book turns up evidence
of prehistoric interbreeding
between that species and
humans (6/5/10, p. 5).
2006 | Pluto demoted
After a rancorous debate,
astronomers vote to take
away Pluto’s planetary status
( 8/19/06, p. 115; 9/2/06,
p. 149 ).
2006 | Dark matter
Researchers report direct
detection of dark matter’s
presence in space (8/26/06,
p. 131).
2010 | BP oil spill
The biggest oil spill in the
history of the United States
dumps a mixture of crude oil
and natural gas into the Gulf
of Mexico for five months
(7/3/10, p. 5; 9/11/10, p. 5;
10/9/10, p. 10).
2011 | Tohoku-oki quake
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake
in Japan and the tsunami
it spawned kill more than
15,000 people and trigger the
worst nuclear disaster since
Chernobyl (4/9/11, p. 5).
2010 | Neandertal liaisons
A project sequencing the
2011 | Sea level rise
North Carolina sediment
cores reveal that sea levels
began rising precipitously in
the late 19th century, a trend
attributed to climate change
(7/16/11, p. 13).
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JAY MATTERNES © 2009; SCIENCE NEWS STAFF; NASA, JPL-CALTECH, UNIV. OF ARIZONA, TEXAS A&M UNIV.
2007 | Cell switcheroo
Biologists turn human skin
cells into stem cells, without
embryos (11/24/07, p. 323).
2008 | Mars water
A Mars lander (tracks below)
definitively confirms the
presence of water on Mars,
after the rover “touched and
tasted ice” (8/30/08, p. 11).
2009 | MicroRNAs
A tumor suppressor
protein turns out to have
a previously unrecognized
function: helping to slice
stretches of RNA into
regulatory molecules called
Ninety years of spreading the science news
Through the years, Science News has found a range of creative ways to bring the latest
discoveries of science to the public.
s 1932 SNL offers “an experimental series of science addresses recorded phono-
graphically by eminent scientists” on long-playing records (2/20/32, p. 112). A set of
seven records with pictures of the speakers sells for $3 postage paid (3/5/32, p. 148).
s 1943 An overseas pocket-sized edition of Science News Letter ships out to troops
during World War II (11/20/43).
s 1954 A monthly edition of SNL is offered to carry “the news of science to the
non-English speaking areas of the world.” Called Scientia International, the magazine
is printed in an “international auxiliary language” called Interlingua (akin to
Esperanto): “In other countries there is no journal like Science News Letter. But now
you can supply them with one in a language which is not their native tongue but
which they can read with utter ease” (2/20/54, p. 125).
s 1969 SN announces the publication of an annual review called Science News
Yearbook, as well as hav-
ing doubled its staff and
added foreign correspon-
dents “from Canberra to
New Delhi to Geneva”
(1/18/69, p. 59).
s 2011 Science News Prime,
an interactive tablet publi-
cation for the iPad (right),
goes on sale in the i Tunes
app store.
www.sciencenews.org
March 24, 2012 | SCIENCE NEWS | 33
