\n<\/p>\n
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American\u2019s Science Quickly, I\u2019m Rachel Feltman.<\/p>\n
You may have noticed we\u2019ve been taking a bit of a break from our usual Monday news roundup to make room for special episodes, including our bird flu series, as well as to accommodate some summer holidays and vacation plans for our small but mighty team. We\u2019ll be back to the news roundup format next week.<\/p>\n
For today I thought it would be fun to dip back into the Scientific American archives for a few minutes. Let\u2019s check in on what SciAm was up to exactly one century ago, in July of 1925.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll start with the issue\u2019s cover story, which was contributed by the curator of marine life at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and seems to have been written, at least in large part, to introduce readers to the concept of tide pools. These are indents in rocky coastal areas that during high tide get filled with water, which remains trapped once the tide goes back out.<\/p>\n
The writer describes the abundant marine life that could be found in the high tide puddles of Woods Hole, Massachusetts and other Massachusetts tidal zones, waxing poetic about barnacles and sea worms, which he compares to \u201cacrobats\u201d and \u201cGoddesses of the sea,\u201d respectively. One hundred years later, scientists and laypeople alike are still quite taken with tide pools. They\u2019re really interesting environments: during low tide they\u2019re generally shallow enough that they can get quite warm, which can be challenging for the organisms living inside them. Other difficulties for these organisms include the fact that tide pools are easy for predators such as birds and crabs to access. On top of that, oxygen levels in the pool drop off between infusions of new seawater. Plus, tidal pool residents often have to withstand crashing waves when the ocean reaches them again.<\/p>\n
A lot has changed since 1925, but checking out tide pools is still a great pastime for anyone hanging around the coast. Depending on where you live, you can spot anemones, starfish, coral and even octopi, among other things.<\/p>\n
The issue also features a somewhat scathing assessment of the U.S. commercial aviation industry as it stood in 1925. According to Scientific American\u2019s editors, someone visiting from abroad asked them whether one could travel from New York to Chicago by airplane. (He asked this question, by the way, by calling up the magazine\u2019s office. Life was hard before Google.)<\/p>\n
The editors told him that he\u2019d have to hire his own airplane to make such a trip, which would be very expensive. But that got them thinking: Would this request have been reasonable in the traveler\u2019s home country? Thus began SciAm\u2019s investigation into the world of commercial flight. RIP SciAM Editors, you would\u2019ve loved The Rehearsal.<\/p>\n
The resulting article points out that in the U.S. in 1925 commercial aviation was mainly used to get mail from one coast to the other. Meanwhile, the article explains, countries in Europe were already in the midst of an aviation boom, using planes to move people and products all over the place. According to the article, one could travel from London to Berlin for $40, which amounts to about $753 today. That\u2019s not exactly bargain airfare, but it\u2019s not so far off from what a modern flier might pay to travel in business class, and one can imagine that most folks paying for the privilege of air travel in 1925 were either traveling for important business, flush with cash or more likely both.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that the Scientific American editors were dismayed to find the U.S. lagging so far behind. In an inset titled, rather dramatically, \u201cAre We a Negligent People?\u201d the magazine asks what has become of American aviation. \u201cWe invented the airplane, neglected it, and left to Europe the task of putting it into widely extended commercial service,\u201d the section reads probably in a transatlantic accent. \u201dAs a people we are supposed to have a perfect genius for practising rapid-fire methods in our industrial activities. We are supposed to have developed time-saving into an exact science and have shown the world how to practise it. In the airplane, the Wrights gave us a time-saving machine which, if our business men had not been so possessed with the desire to make money and make it quickly, would today be one of our principal means of transportation for men, mail and light freight. Save for the fine work of the Army, the Navy, the Air Postal Service and a few private firms, we have done practically nothing, leaving to Europe the developing of commercial transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not the only aviation tea in the July 1925 issue. In the magazine\u2019s \u201cOur Point of View\u201d section the editors reflect on Orville Wright\u2019s decision to send the first power-driven, person-carrying aircraft to the British National Museum. If you\u2019re not familiar with this historical scandal, here\u2019s the gist: the Wright brothers are famous for making the first powered, controlled flight in 1903. But for decades the Smithsonian Institution tried to give that honor to Samuel Langley, its former secretary, whose own flying machine had crashed just days before the Wrights\u2019 aircraft succeeded. In 1914 the Smithsonian\u2019s director had Langley\u2019s aircraft retrofitted to prove it could have flown\u2014if only it hadn\u2019t failed\u2014and used that to award him the credit. The museum displayed the aircraft with a placard to that effect. Orville Wright was, understandably, displeased. In Scientific American\u2019s July 1925 issue the editors say that the museum display is misleading and that Langley definitely did not beat the Wright brothers. \u201cThe whole matter, indeed, may be regarded as very much of a tempest in a teapot,\u201d the editors wrote, \u201cand it could easily be set right if the Smithsonian Institution would remove the objectionable placard and change it so that there could be no possible misunderstanding.\u201d That wouldn\u2019t actually happen until 1928, and the Smithsonian didn\u2019t get around to apologizing until 1942. But hey, we tried!<\/p>\n
Though the U.S. was lagging behind in commercial flight, a graphic from the 1925 issue shows we were leading the charge in at least one technological arena: gabbing on the phone. The infographic contends that 62.9 percent of the world\u2019s telephones in 1925 were located in the U.S. and that the country led the way in phones per capita as well. We also came out ahead in terms of how often people got on the horn: the average person in the United States apparently sent 182 messages via phone each year, with second place going to Denmark with 123. And Russians, the editors noted, were \u201ccontent with four and one-half calls\u201d each. Sure we\u2019re talking a lot, but are we actually saying anything?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all for today\u2019s archival adventure. We\u2019ll be back on Wednesday to talk about some of SciAm\u2019s hottest summer reading recommendations. And tune in next week for a return to our good old news roundup.<\/p>\n
Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.<\/p>\n
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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