Carnegie Institution for Science

Some authorities think that it is better to increase the size of the letters, and Huey asserts that an attempt to improve unduly small type by making wide spaces between lines is a mistake.

As to the relative legibility of different typefaces, one of the most exhaustive investigations was that made at Clark University by Miss Barbara E. Ruthlin, whose results were published in 1912. this study considers questions of form style and grouping independently of mere size and the conclusion is that legibility is a product of six factors of which size is one the others being form heaviness of face width of the margin around the letter position in the letter group and shape and size of adjoining letters for tired eyes the size factor would appear of overwhelming importance except where the other elements make the page fantastically illegible in miss rothlin's tables based upon a combination of the factors mentioned above the maximum of legibility almost always coincides with that of size These experiments seem to have influenced printers, whose organization in Boston has appointed a committee to urge upon the Carnegie Institution, the establishment of a department of research, to make scientific tests of printing types in regard to the comparative legibility and the possibility of improving some of their forms.

Their effort, so far, has met with no success, but the funds at the disposal of this body could surely be put to no better use.

With regard to the improvement of legibility by alteration of form, it has been recognized by experiments from the outset that the letters of our alphabet, especially the small or lowercase letters, are not equally legible.

Some authorities think that it is better to increase the size of the letters, and Huey asserts that an attempt to improve unduly small type by making wide spaces between lines is a mistake.

as to the relative legibility of different typefaces one of the most exhaustive investigations was that made at clark university by miss barbara e ruthlin whose results were published in this study considers questions of form style and grouping independently of mere size and the conclusion is that legibility is a product of six factors of which size is one the others being form heaviness of face width of the margin around the letter position in the letter group and shape and size of adjoining letters for tired eyes the size factor would appear of overwhelming importance except where the other elements make the page fantastically illegible in miss rothlin's tables based upon a combination of the factors mentioned above the maximum of legibility almost always coincides with that of size These experiments seem to have influenced printers, whose organization in Boston has appointed a committee to urge upon the Carnegie Institution, the establishment of a department of research, to make scientific tests of printing types in regard to the comparative legibility and the possibility of improving some of their forms.

Their effort so far has met with no success, but the funds at the disposal of this body could surely be put to no better use.

With regard to the improvement of legibility by alteration of form, it has been recognized by experiments from the outset that the letters of our alphabet, especially the small or lowercase letters, are not equally legible.

I'm your host, Mike Wong.

Before jumping into today's show, I want to let you know that the recording of my Carnegie Science Neighborhood lecture titled Strange New Worlds, The Science of Star Trek is now up on YouTube for you to enjoy.

If you're not familiar with what this is, basically in celebration of Star Trek's 60th anniversary this year, My friends at work and I hosted a Star Trek-themed science outreach event on our campus at Carnegie Science's Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

Think of this as, like, the coolest episode of this podcast ever produced to date.

Not only do you get to hear from me about the astrobiology of Star Trek, but also from fellow scientists and science communicators Phil Plait, Nicole Wallach, and Maggie Thompson about how their research relates to Star Trek.

The Carnegie System is a standardized system scientists use to classify human embryos by their actual physical development.

It grew out of the Carnegie Institution's collection and study of human embryos, and its 23 stages became an internationally recognized standard for describing early human development.

And importantly, these stages aren't based on just how many days have passed since fertilization.

Researchers look at identifiable developmental features.

When questions about Mars, life, and time collide, you get fascinating conversations like the one Brian Keating had with Michael Wong from the Carnegie Institution for Science.

And Wong opened with something designed to completely unsettle our assumptions.

Let me guess, something about life on Mars?

Her name was Vera Rubin.

Together with her longtime collaborator Kent Ford, An instrument builder of great skill working at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, she began, in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, one of the most quietly consequential observational programs in the history of astronomy.

Ford had built a remarkable device, an image tube spectrograph, sensitive enough to record the spectrum of a single small patch of a galaxy in a reasonable exposure time.

This mattered.

They didn't stop using science to justify their abuse of everyone who didn't look like them, but openly identifying with Nazi Germany was getting pretty unpopular, even by the mid-1930s, years before the war actually began.

In 1935, the Carnegie Institution convened a panel that determined Harry Laughlin's work at the Eugenics Research Office lacked scientific merit, and they ultimately pulled their funding and closed the office altogether.

So now, here's one of the country's most aggressively racist race scientists, and he's out of the job.

He was the perfect fit for the Pioneer Fund's first president.

If the surface lacks these materials, the gas composing the atmosphere must be sourced from beneath the surface, supporting either the cryovolcanic or impact hypothesis.

Scott Shepard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, commenting on the discovery, noted that it demonstrates the Kuiper Belt is not a cold, dead place, but rather a region teeming with activity and harbouring many of the building blocks for complex chemistry.

The finding suggests that atmosphere generating processes may be more common on small Kuiper belt objects than previously believed and that future occultation campaigns may reveal similar thin envelopes around other bodies in the belt.

This single detection does not rewrite atmospheric science on its own.

Before we begin, I want to let you all know about a really cool Science of Star Trek event coming up on September 9th, 2026.

In celebration of Star Trek's 60th anniversary, my institution, Carnegie Science, is throwing a Star Trek themed neighborhood lecture, where I'll be giving a short talk on the astrobiology of Star Trek, followed by a panel discussion featuring myself and my colleagues Nicole Wallach and Maggie Thompson.

The panel will be moderated by the one and only Phil Plait, also known as the Internet's Bad Astronomer, who is an expert in science communication, astronomy, and a huge trackie.

You can beam in over Zoom, or if you live in the Washington, D.C. area, join us in person for free at Carnegie Science.

The link to register is in the show notes.

I'd really love to see you there.

And now, on to today's show.

Previously on Strange New Worlds, we spoke to Abby Alling and Amelia Lee, two of Carnegie Science's 2026 Epic Interns.

Green of Brooklyn, capable of recording only such air pressures as one might expect to find above 12,000 feet.

A hypsometer loaned us by the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, with thermometers especially made for us by Green.

A large mercurial barometer borrowed from the Harvard Observatory, which notwithstanding its rough treatment by Mr. Hinckley's mule was still doing good service, and one of Green's sling psychrometers.

Our most serious want was an aneroid in case the fragile mercurials should get broken.