the science service

“the purpose of the science service, founded in 1921, was to bridge the chasm between scientific achievement and the public’s knowledge of such achievement. from the beginning, the challenge for science service was to convince the scientific community that a news syndication service could successfully popularize science by presenting unsensationalized, accurate, and fascinating scientific news to the american public, and to convince news editors that science was newsworthy. during this period much fake science was published, and scientific news of real importance seldom reached the public.”

in the 84 years since the services inception it would seem huge strides have been made in the reportage of real science, then again, the amount of sensationalized or fake news has grown in similar proportion… anyhow, the smithsonian has a really great site up showcasing some of the science services work over the years in the form of period images accompanied by their original captions. fascinating and sometimes funny considering how much (and in some cases how little) progress we’ve made. i’ve excerpted some of my favorites below. 





Computer Art. June 29, 1968

There isn’t a curved line in this 23-point polygon. Utilizing the step and repeat feature, BMAPS completed this figure in 15 minutes. It would take most draftsmen six hours. Traditional? Surrealism? Avant garde? For lack of a better word, it’s called computer/plotter art, a little known but increasingly important art form which was demonstrated at an informal showing held at the New York room of the Statler Hilton, Los Angeles. In each case the pictures exhibited at the showing were the product of countless mathematical computations fed into computers and then placed on tape which was run through a CalComp Plotter and created visually into a work of art. Computer/plotter art has been hitherto little known except within the technical world. Increasing refinements, however, have produced beautiful pictures, so much so that the drawings, both originals and reproductions, are now being sought by collectors.





Stratovision. June 23 1948?

Zanesville, Ohio, June 23 - Television broadcasts of the Republican Convention beamed the world’s first Stratovision airborne station to this rural community tonight make technically possible coast-to-coast television and frequency modulation broadcasting even to remote and isolated farm homes. Stratovision - a joint development of Westinghouse and the Glenn L. Martin Company - successfully rebroadcast from the east coast television network the Convention and Lois-Walcott fight over an estimated area of 525 miles diameter covering nine states. In the network system, illustrated, programs originated in ground studios are beamed to the planes which relay it (dotted lines) from plane to plane. Meanwhile each plane in the network would receive and broadcast nine simultaneously available programs in an area of about 500 miles diameter (shaded circles).





Electroluminescence. March 20, 1961

An electronic panel less than one-half inch thick that utilizes a new principle to produce a moving, lighted image was described here today by a scientist of General Telephone & Electronics Laboratories Incorporated at the international meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers. One of the major advantages of the device is its ability to display an image on a thin, flat panel. Conventional electronic display devices use a cathode ray tube to produce an image. Electroluminescence involves the excitation of a phosphor coating on a thin, flat panel through the application of an electric field, thus causing the phosphor coating to give off light.
In its present stage the device appears to have its earliest potential uses in military and laboratory devices where the production of illuminated lines and dots is needed in electronic systems and equipment.







Voice Communications. 19 April 1964

NASA has developed a new system of voice communication via a light beam. The Retrometer is so-called because the light beam over which voice signals are sent is returned directly to its source by a corner reflector. It consists of three major functional parts: a light source, a corner reflector, and a light-collection system. The light source and light-collection system are in one unit, left. The corner reflector—which acts as a microphone—is a passive modulator, requiring no power except the human voice. The system differs from previous ones in that the originating station requires no power other than the human voice. And the NASA Retrometer is believed to be alone among light beam communications systems in offering a simple, convenient, and inexpensive device at one terminal. The complete Retrometer system consists of a battery case, the source/receiver unit and the corner reflector. Immediate commercial use of this invention, which is owned by the Space agency is encouraged by NASA under royalty-free, non-exclusive licenses.





Smoke Screens. 1941-42

Here is a closeup of the business end of the Army’s new M-1 smoke generator as it spurts smoke at a rate far faster than is possible by any previous equipment. 





Integrated Circuits. March 23, 1967

A group of researchers of International Business Machines Corporation has overcome a major difficulty in making complex arrangements of integrated circuits.They have largely automated the design and fabrication of the circuit masks, cutting the time of these operations by more than a factor of ten. In the photograph IBM technician David Baron examines a small photographic plate, which is the end product of the automated process. The plate contains on of the mask patterns (10X), which was drawn by a light beam in an automated “light table.” With traditional preparation methods, the pattern for each mask is cut by hand from opaque material at 200 or 500 times final size. The system has been used to generate sets of masks for complex integrated circuit chips containing over 100 NOR circuits. An example is shown in the background. Manual preparation is a tedious, time-consuming process subject to many errors.





Electric Lamps. January 15, 1939

Lighting engineers this month welcomed a new type of glare-free electric light bulb, called the most revolutionary improvement in incandescent lamps since the appearance in 1925 of the common inside frosted bulb. The new bulb is specially designed to act as its own diffuser in changing ordinary harsh filament light into soft restful illumination, without losing any light in doing so, and with complete elimination of glare. Contrary to popular conception the glare problem during the last decade has been getting worse instead of better, because lamp engineers have paid too much attention to lamp efficiencies and not enough to lamp glare.





Electric Speech. Jan. 1939

The young lady striking keys is creating a man-like voice. This new synthetic orator will “lecture” with his “electrical accent” at the New York and San Francisco world fairs. It is a compact machine resting on a small table, plus as many loudspeakers as are necessary to reach the audience.VODER, THE MACHINE THAT TALKS. No recording of any kind is used in this latest addition to the anatomy of the Mechanical Man. A girl at a keyboard controlling varying electrical currents does the trick. It has a pair of keyboard units, more than a dozen other controls and an electrical circuit featuring a vaccum (sic) tube and a gas-filled discharge tube. Seated at the keyboard of the Voder, this young lady can carry on an ordinary conversation by pressing keys. A pedal operated by her right foot enables the operator to make voice inflection, and synthesized speech is heard from a loudspeaker.





Electric Appliances & Apparatus. April 30, 1932

To assist in lectures and blackboard demonstrations, Westinghouse research engineers have devised a novel and effective aid consisting of a lighted pointer. By placing this spot of light at the center of interest of the diagram, the speaker is able to focus the attention of his audience on the point of interest emphasizing in relief the area being discussed. Also, when used with a colored light, it may be used with lanter slides. The pointer is easily made and may be built by anyone having the need of a similar device.





Semiconductors. January 19, 1967

Granules of ordinary superfine sugar appear large alongside experimental semiconductor devices under development at Bell Telephone Laboratories. The tiny devices, bulk-effect oscillators made from gallium arsenide, are being studied as sources of microwave and millimeter power for communications systems. Solid-state devices such as these may someday replace medium-power vacuum tubes as microwave oscillators in many applications.





Electronic Devices. April 1, 1964

You do not have to be an Italian to set this thermostat. The Honeywell device carries both Fahrenheit and Centigrade scales for the convenience of American and continental passengers on board the Italian luxury liner Michelangelo.

great stuff huh? one final note, the site also contains a small gallery of original science news letters spanning the years 1928 - 1979, fully digitized for your reading pleasure.