Life Magazine in 1951

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Continuing my look at Life Magazines on Internet Archive….

As I looked at the issues from 1951, advertisements reflected products like Coca-Cola, Mounds candy bars, Bell telephone, airline flights, Life Savers candy, Alice in Wonderland movie, cat food, Avon cosmetics, penicillin by Merck, and Chrismas ads for eggnog and 7Up. There were pictures of construction, the beginning of an avalanche, Yellowstone in winter, the Dalai Lama traveling before he left Tibet to live in India, Korean war, Peary in the Arctic, and A-Bomb tests. They were all part of what the publisher thought was newsworthy in 1951!

Life Magazine 1951-01-01 - Cotton stockpile

Life Magazine 1951-01-08 - Coca-Cola through 65 years (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-01-15 - 50 year ago – Spindletop in Beaumont, TX

Life Magazine 1951-01-22 - Cinderella never had it so bad (outside London)

Life Magazine 1951-01-29 - Mounds Coconut (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-02-05 - Castle Geyser new Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park

Life Magazine 1951-02-12 - Career girl, 1965 (Bell Telephone advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-02-19 - Jungle Gardens in Louisiana (swampland refuge)

Life Magazine 1951-02-26 - Glow of A-bomb explosion

Life Magazine 1951-03-05 - Air pipeline to Korea

Life Magazine 1951-03-12 - Young avalanche in the French Alps

Life Magazine 1951-03-19 - Pumpkin-like house

Life Magazine 1951-03-26 - Dark days in Iran after premier’s murder

Life Magazine 1951-04-02 - Blooms in central California

Life Magazine 1951-04-09 - Grandma flying (TWA advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-04-16 - Delaware Memorial Bridge construction

Life Magazine 1951-04-23 - Dalai Lama traveling

Life Magazine 1951-04-30 - Modern church design

Life Magazine 1951-05-07 - Refugees in China

Life Magazine 1951-05-14 - Peary’s fellow discoverers at the North Pole

Life Magazine 1951-05-21 - Earliest humans

Life Magazine 1951-05-28 - Paratrooper

Life Magazine 1951-06-04 - Worse main street (in Bellevue, OH)

Life Magazine 1951-06-11 - Children in peril (from narcotics)

Life Magazine 1951-06-18 - Pep-o-mint Life Savers (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-06-25 - Martha’s Vineyard from above

Life Magazine 1951-07-02 - US House Statuary Hall

Life Magazine 1951-07-09 - Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-07-16 - After flood, mud (in Kansas)

Life Magazine 1951-07-23 - North Korean soldier reaction to photographer

Life Magazine 1951-07-30 - Paris on her 2,000 birthday

Life Magazine 1951-08-06 - Insects survive by mimicry

Life Magazine 1951-08-13 - Drought cracks Arizona

Life Magazine 1951-08-20 - Festival of Britain

Life Magazine 1951-08-27 - W.R. Hearst – a quiet end

Life Magazine 1951-09-03 - Puss’n’Boots Cat food (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-09-10 - California lights

Life Magazine 1951-09-17 - Children without clutter

Life Magazine 1951-09-24 - Fantastic weapons

Life Magazine 1951-10-01 - Largest helicopter

Life Magazine 1951-10-08 - Pelicans at West Palm Beach

Life Magazine 1951-10-15 - Avon Cosmetics (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-10-22 - Plasma storage

Life Magazine 1951-10-22 - The wonder of penicillin (Merck advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-11-05 - Port of New York

Life Magazine 1951-11-12 - Yale’s 250th autumn

Life Magazine 1951-11-19 - Baltimore’s Friendship airport

Life Magazine 1951-11-26 - The American road

Life Magazine 1951-12-03 - Stream pollution – an Ohio creek

Life Magazine 1951-12-10 - First underground A-bomb blast in Nevada

Life Magazine 1951-12-17 - Borden’s Egg Nog (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-12-24 - Christmas (7up Advertisement)

Life Magazine 1951-12-31 - Hillside farms in Japan

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 24, 2026

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

1/3/2026 The Scientist Polio Vaccine History: The Shot That Saved Millions - On April 12, 1955, when the Salk polio vaccine was declared “safe and effective,” church bells rang out, kids were let out of school, and headlines around the world celebrated the victory over polio. When asked whether he was going to patent the vaccine, Salk told journalist Edward R. Murrow it belonged to the people and would be like “patenting the sun.”

1/8/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Hundreds of Flowering Species Bloomed Across Britain and Ireland Last Winter - Citizen scientists in the British Isles documented more than 300 native plant species blooming in early 2025, a phenomenon likely caused by climate change. While it’s lovely to see so many wildflowers in bloom … it’s also a sad reflection of the way our climate is changing and the knock-on effects this might have for all the wildlife—bees and other pollinators, butterflies and all the larger creatures further up the food chain—that depend on plants. If flowering times are increasingly out of sync with insect hatching times, the consequences could be very serious.

1/8/206 People in Brazil are living past 110 and scientists want to know why – Brazil’s highly diverse population harbors millions of genetic variants missing from standard datasets, including rare changes linked to immune strength and cellular maintenance. Brazilian supercentenarians often remain mentally sharp, survive serious infections, and come from families where multiple members live past 100. Together, they reveal aging not as inevitable decline, but as a form of biological resilience.

1/7/2026 The Conversation Surprising number of foods contain microplastics. Here’s how to reduce the amount you consume - While eliminating plastics entirely from our diets may be impossible, making these swaps should help to reduce your exposure.

1/6/2026 Nature Defossilize our chemical world - Achieving net zero means eliminating fossil fuels, not carbon — the chemical element has a crucial part to play in powering the modern world. Defossilization means finding sustainable ways to make carbon-based chemicals. Alternative sources of carbon include the atmosphere and plants, as well as carbon in existing biological or industrial waste, such as used plastics or agricultural residue. In some cases, these chemicals will eventually return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through burning or biodegradation. In principle, this will occur as part of a circular process, rather than one that has added greenhouse gases.

1/5/2026 Planetizen The Child Population in These Cities is Dropping Fast - The proportion of young children in western U.S. metros is falling faster than in other parts of the country. Lower birth rates can sometimes ease immediate pressure on housing and schools but also lead to challenges in supporting economic growth and elder care, as the ratio of working adults to retirees declines.

1/4/2026 Washington Post What we learned about microplastics in 2025 - For many scientists, 2025 was the year of microplastics. It’s only in the past year or so that we have begun to understand that the tiny plastics — including some that are impossible to see with the naked eye — are in our bodies and food as well.

1/9/2026 Science Alert Study Finds Microplastics Are Widespread in Popular Seafoods - In the Pacific Northwest – a region of North America renowned for its seafood – researchers have found particles from our waste and pollution swimming in the edible tissue of just about every fish and shellfish they collected.

12/18/2025 Yale Environment 360 After Ruining a Treasured Water Resource, Iran Is Drying Up - Iran is looking to relocate the nation’s capital because of severe water shortages that make Tehran unsustainable. Experts say the crisis was caused by years of ill-conceived dam projects and overpumping that destroyed a centuries-old system for tapping underground reserves. 

1/8/2026 BBC The animals saved in Greece's ancient accidental 'arks' - Shielded from development and agriculture, many archaeological sites have now become inadvertent safe harbors for plants and animals. In Italy, rare orchids flower around an Etruscan necropolis. In the ancient Greek religious centre of Delphi, researchers found what they believe is a new species of snail – just 2mm (0.08in) long – suspected to live only in that area. In recent years, two new species of lizard were identified in Machu Picchu that may have once had a wider range and today enjoy the relatively undisturbed conditions of the ancient sanctuary. To better understand the connection between historical sites and nature, in 2022 the Greek government launched the Biodiversity in Archaeological Sites research project. Over two years, 49 specialists in all kinds of plants and animals surveyed 20 archaeological sites that spanned Greek history. 

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 18, 2023

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Are pumpkins a future superfood? – Maybe. The plants are high heat and drought tolerant….. and tolerate salinity. Nutritionally they have essential vitamins, minerals, and fats.

Do or dye: Synthetic colors in wastewater pose a threat to food chains worldwide - Dyes create several problems when they reach water systems, from stopping light reaching the microorganisms that are the bedrock of our food chains, preventing their reproduction and growth, to more direct consequences like the toxic effects on plants, soils, animals and humans. Remediation technologies for dye-containing wastewater, including chemical, biological, physical and emerging advanced membrane-based techniques.

Billions Of Snow Crabs Have Died in Alaska. Will Billions of People Be Next? – Starvation….but linked to marine heatwaves that affected snow crab metabolism.

Even treated wood prevents bacterial transmission by hand – Maybe we should be using wood more frequently for surfaces where keeping bacteria at bay is important (countertops, for example).

Staring at the Sun — close-up images from space rewrite solar science – Results from Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter…and the ground-based Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope.

Higher levels of triglycerides linked to lower risk of dementia – A correlation…not necessarily a causal relationship.

Jupiter's volcanic moon Io looks stunning in new Juno probe photos – From an October 15th flyby.

The Rio Grande isn’t just a border – it’s a river in crisis – So many rivers are in trouble. The Rio Grande drought story is complicated by international treaty…and contentious relations at the border.

These Rare Daguerreotypes Are the Earliest Surviving Photos of Iran in the 1850s – It would be interesting to see what these same places look like today.

Why are bed bugs so difficult to deal with? – They are increasingly resistant to pesticides that previously were effective. Creating policies that require reporting and resident notification by landlords…and requiring the landlords to treat infestations within 30 days has been effective in New York. Infestations can be managed, but probably not eliminated.