Word: cm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Leakey and her team compared the footprints with some left 80,000 years ago by Neanderthal man, generally accepted as the earliest human prints. Only about 15 cm (6 in.) long, but 11½ cm (4½ in.) across?much wider than either those of Neanderthal or modern man?the Laetolil markings indicate a manlike primate about 1.2 meters (4 ft.) tall that probably walked with what Leakey calls "a slow, rolling gait," like a chimpanzee's. Though there were many animal tracks nearby ?including some of knuckle-walking apes?Leakey is "75% certain" that the prints were those...
Brent, who learned sculpture before studying medicine, built upon and refined techniques developed by Dr. Radford Tanzer, 72, now a professor emeritus at Dartmouth Medical College. The basic principle is to use one or two pieces of cartilage, 4 to 5 in. (10 to 13 cm.) long, taken from the patient's own ribs. This causes no disability. While an assistant closes the chest wound, Brent carves and molds the cartilage into an approximation of the ultimate desired shape for the new ear. Then he makes a pocket from the skin where the ear should be and slips...
Whatever the cause of the perplexing uplift around Palmdale, scientists have plenty to study in the region. Though the bulge has been rising in most areas, it fell almost 15 cm. (6 in.) in at least one section between Palmdale and Pasadena from 1974 to 1976, a phenomenon that baffles experts. In addition, scientists are disturbed by a flurry of minor tremors, measuring up to 3 on the Richter scale, that have occurred along the fault southeast of Palmdale, since November 1976. Says Don L. Anderson, director of Caltech's seismological laboratory: "Until these recent swarms there has been...
Finally, while parts of the fault appear to be jammed, recent work by Caltech scientists-using ultraprecise radio telescopes as measuring instruments and signals from distant quasars (see following story) as benchmarks-shows that there has been relative motion of up to 20 cm. (8 in.) in only three years between the opposing plates just south of the San Gabriel mountains. That motion, which may be rapid by San Andreas standards, also mystifies the researchers. Says Caltech's Peter MacDoran, who has been directing these measurements. "What we need is a nice, big nondestructive earthquake that we can intensely...
Kowal's latest finding was based on photographs taken in mid-October through the Hale Observatories' 122-cm. (48-in.) Schmidt telescope atop California's Mount Palomar. A microscopic examination of photographic plates exposed on successive nights revealed a short, faint trail of light between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus; the object that made it appeared to be moving in relation to the stars that formed the background. Kowal promptly called Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., for help in verifying his discovery. Marsden, who serves as a clearinghouse...