The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-10-11
SCIENTIFIC

T SOlENlTN
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Copper in certain druggists supplies has
been traced by Mr.. E. H. Cane to copper
rivets used in the driving belts ~ the
manufacturing machinery.
i Novel hrst-aid- to injured boxes are TO
be scattered in the streets of Paris Out
wardy the apparatus resembles lamp
post letter-boX, and it contains small
medicine chest, folding stretcher and a
telephone for signaling the nearest am
bulance station. Access to the box is
gained by breaking glass panel.
/ The problem of why and how we grow
old is as fascinating as ever. A French
physician claims to have discovered in
the red corpuscles of the blood of man.
mails a special substance that is album
dant in the embryo but diminishes with
advancing age.
In the half-century since aniline dyes
were first made from coal-tar, the
available dyestuffs have increased to
an estimated total of more than 300O-.
600, patents having been claimed on
about $4,000 The few natural colOring
matters will soon be forgotten.
Meat in cooking loses much bulk from
evaporation-small pieces more than
large. In late experiments, pound
piece of lean beef lost 45.6 per cent in
weight. but five-pound piece was re-
duced only 1913 per cent. Loss in nutri-
ton was much less than this would in
dictate.
The left lobe OF the brain, governing
| the right side of the body, is known to
! be superior to the right lobe in its in
! fiuence upon the bodily functions Or.
+, Phelps, a recent investigator, insists that
! the left brain is also the intellectual half. =
! He has studied nearly 800 cases of brain
| injury and disease. and has found that
! the right side may be severely injured
without materially affecting the thinking
powers.
The regulation of automobile speeds is
likely to prove an Increasingly serious
matter. In late instance, careful meas
urement for two furlongs showed
speed of is miles an hour, yet the driver
tesutied that he was not exceeding rate
of six miles. Perhaps some inventor
may supply ponce authorities with
cheap continuous speed-recorder whose
attachment TO InOlOT NeHlClSS may tt
made compulsory.
1t is generally supposed that sound, like
light. passes through solid bodies as an
elastic penetrating wave, but late expert
ments by DIR. F.. L. Tufts show that this
is not the case. The transmission is by
a to-and-fro vibration of the solid itself.
setting up new wave the opposite
side. 1t is found that nothing is gained by 8
providing an air-space between the dou-
BILE walls of telephone-booths and of other
rooms intended to be sound-proof. but
that the greater rightly secured by plec-
ing the walls in contact would more than
offset any advantage of the air-cushion.
Alloys of aluminium and magnesium
are known to work better than pure
aluminium with certain tools, but they
are less malleable and ductile. Some
German metallurgists have discovered
that the addition of two to ten per
cent of magnesium scarcely changes
the appearance of the aluminium, but
that this alloy acquires new qualities,
after rolling several times at tenn N
perature of 400 to 500 degrees Cent? 81
grade. 1t can be cut and filed with the
greatest facility, while it retains the
ductility and malleability of pure alumi-
mum.
In the crusade against the mosquito,
the more intimate and numerous assoc
ciate of man has been overlooked. Sir
James Crichton Browne has now point K.
ed out that cultures of many disease
bacteria have been obtained lately from
the eXcreta of the common house-f1y,
and that many germs-as those of en-
teric fever in South Africa-are doubt
less spread by this insect. The enor-
nous fertility of the fly in itself dis
courages any hope of determination,
calculation having shown 25,O00,O 600 de-
scendants for a single female in one
season.
The new form of radiation brought
to notice by Nj. Albert Nondon seems TO
have properties intermediate between
those of X-rays and those of radium
rays 1t is produced on the dark side
IF a thin metallic plate when luminous
or ultraviolet rays fall upon the OPP
posite side, and it has the effect of dis
charging an electrified body-such as
brass sphere-enclosed in light-tight
box. The radiation does not seem to
produce fuorescence or act upon
Photographic plate. 1t penetrates wood
and glass, and differs from cathode
rays in passing through metals and
black cardboard.
Brain and nerve poisons. such as mor-s<es.,
phine and atropine, are much less -
poisonous to animals than to man,
states Prof. V. X. Chestnut. In proper
ton to their weight, dogs and horses
can endure ten times as much morphine
as man, while doves can stand 500 times
and frogs even 1000 times as much.
The herbivorous animals have the
digestive tract OF much greater length
than the carnivorous. This causes the
food to remain in the body several days
instead Of twenty-four hours, and the
longer time for absorption into the
blood probably explains why metsiIc
poisons are much more fatal to the
herbivorous than to the carnivorous
animals.
One of the great centers of chemical
f.tr Il, 10, ,tN,nr Of