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Tracking Satellites by Radio

The fastest, most reliable way to detect an artificial satellite and initially to determine its orbit is by radio. A far-flung system called Minitrack has been established for this purpose...

By John T. Mengel and Paul Herget

The Leap of the Grasshopper

A grasshopper can leap 20 times its body length. The physiology of this remarkable performance is studied both for its intrinsic interest and for its usefulness in improving control of the insect...

By Graham Hoyle

Ultrahigh-Altitude Aerodynamics

At low altitudes the air streaming past a flying object behaves as a true fluid, but at altitudes above 40 miles the object is struck by individual atoms and molecules

By Samuel A. Schaaf, Lawrence Talbot and Lee Edson

The Principle of Uncertainty

This rule of modern physics, which states that events at the atomic level cannot be observed with certainty, helps resolve the paradox that particles sometimes behave like waves and waves like particles...

By George Gamow

Barbiturates

They are among the most useful of all drugs. In small doses they act as sedatives; in larger doses they induce sleep; in still larger doses they are able to produce deep anesthesia

By Elijah Adams

How do Genes Act?

In which the effect of a human mutation that causes a disease of the blood is traced to a change in one of the 300 amino acid units that make up the structure of the protein hemoglobin

By Vernon M. Ingram

Experiments in Discrimination

A pigeon can be trained to peck when a light of a certain wavelength is flashed. It will also peck at lights of other wavelengths, but at a rate which declines in proportion to the difference in wavelength...

By Norman Guttman and Harry I. Kalish

Whales, Plankton and Man

The whale feeds its enormous bulk by sifting out tons of tiny crustaceans from the ocean every day. More studies of whales and what they feed on may help solve the human food problem

By Willis E. Pequegnat

Departments

  • 50 and 100 Years Ago: January 1958

  • Science and the Citizen: January 1958

  • Letters

    Letters to the Editors, January 1958

  • Recommended

    Books

  • Mathematical Recreation

    Mathematical Games

  • Amateur Scientist

    The Amateur Scientist

  • Departments

    The Authors

  • Bibliography

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