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LEONARDO DA VINCI —Edison of Yesterday!

TODAY, just four and a half centuries after he lived, Leonardo da Vinci is receiving belated acclamation as one of the greatest inventive minds the world has ever known!

Famous as a painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, engineer and anatomist, it has not been until the last decade that his genius as an inventor has been truly appreciated. To understand just why this side of history’s most versatile man has been so neglected, we must go back to the latter part of the 15th century, about ten years before Columbus discovered America, for it was then that Leonardo da Vinci was at the height of his all-embracing career.

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Harpoon-Rifle Spears Fish

POWERED by stout rubber bands, a homemade harpoon-rifle invented by W. M. Edwards, of Miami, Florida, actually spears fish. A slender arrow is tied to the line of a fishing reel under the rifle barrel. Steel springs in the muzzle prevent the arrow from slipping into the water when the gun is aimed.

The idea of a variable speed of light has been around for a while and is still an active area of research. However, I’ve always heard about it in regards to time frames measured in billions of years. I’m thinking that if the speed of light changed appreciably between 1911 and 1931 we might have noticed.

Velocity of Light is Not Uniform

MANY experiments to determine the speed of light have been made from time to time, but the results are not uniform. Yet scientists have said that this is the one uniform thing in the universe. Dr. M. E. J. G. de Bray has concluded that the variations are real, and that the speed of light does vary over a long period; having been at a minimum in 1911, and a maximum in 1931. This may reassure those who were alarmed by Soddy’s suggestion that light might cease to travel at all.

This is a really odd article. The basic proposition seems to be, “Wow those stupid, plodding Chinese sure are smart. How is that possible?”

It is rather fascinating to conjecture on some of these things, to realize that plodding John Chinaman, who seems thick and slow and dense to modern Western culture, should have sought out these truths of nature, these mechanics that we today are using in the iron men of our machine age. And to realize that we haven’t yet extracted all of the value from their applications as in some instances John Chinaman has done with his science.

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John Chinaman - His Science

WHERE there ain’t no ten commandments and a man can raise a thirst, there’s an ancient science extant that looks like the very first. We think we’re the only ones who know smelting and hydraulics and ceramics and printing and electricity. But old John Chinaman had a civilized working knowledge of them all so long ago that our ancestors appear to have been dumbells at the time. They were living in total ignorance of a civilization so advanced and so fundamental that even to this day John Chinaman is ahead of us in the application of many things mechanical he has known since Noah built the ark.

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Devise Tiny Walking Radio

A NOVEL radio transmitter is used by representatives of the Columbia Broadcasting System to conduct roving interviews. The device consists of an antenna and radio frequency oscillator mounted in a cane, a microphone on a wrist strap, batteries in a money belt, and an audio amplifier and modulator in a binocular case. Working range is one mile.

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OCTOPUS! Terror of the Deep

How would you like to battle a 24-ft. octopus 20 fathoms under the sea? That’s the thrilling adventure of Lieut. Rieseberg whose diving bell was attacked by a monster squid. Read how the battle was filmed and the octopus killed. These authentic pictures are the most spectacular filmed in underwater history.

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Cold Light
Opents New Field in Electric Signs

MAGIC wands of “cold” light, rivaling the rainbow in their hues and the firefly in their efficiency, have come out of the laboratory to paint night scenes with new marvels of beauty. Perfected and ready for use after years of experiment by General Electric research engineers, these “fluorescent lamps,” as they are called, apply a brand-new principle in illumination. By doing so, they reduce the cost of colored-light displays to a point where lighting effects hitherto possible only in theaters can be applied lavishly everywhere.

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BE A FROGMAN!

Join the new national FROGMAN CLUB today. All you have to do is send $1.00—be sure
to include your name and address—and here’s what you get:
1) A miniature pair of Frog: Feet. Can be worn on key chain, lapel or hung on windshield as lucky charm.
2) An attractive membership card.
3) A Frogman decal to be used on your windshield, bicycle or notebook.
4) A booklet on “How To Swim Underwater” and “The Supreme Sport of Spearfishing”.
5) Periodic bulletins on the latest developments in Frogman equipment and news.
6) Complete catalog of Frogman equipment available for purchase.
7) A free coupon for $1.00, which can be used toward the purchase of a pair of regular size Frog Feet, $6.95 or equivalent in value. This is redeemable at your local sporting goods dealer, drug store, auto supply store or toy departments. If no such dealer available in your area, we will handle direct.

BE A FROGMAN — Send your dollar today!

Sea-Net Mfg. Co, 1428 Maple Avenue. Dept. PM-1, Los Angeles, 15, Calif.

New “Twin Screw Life Belt” Saves Victim at 10 M. P. H.

B. NONOMURA, a Japanese lawyer of Los Angeles, had for several years been contemplating a trip to his native country. So remembering his stormy voyage to this country years ago, and being unable to swim, Nonomura turned inventor and at an inventor’s exhibit at Los Angeles recently he proudly displayed a new self-propelled life preserver, on which he has succeeded in obtaining patent papers.
Going around the waist and fastening over the shoulders in the regular manner, his preserver has the added feature of twin screws in the rear which are turned by hand with cranks. His device will not only keep the man erect in the water, but can move forward at the rate of ten miles per hour. Mr. Nonomura is seen with his new style life preserver in the photo at the left.

Friday animals for profit blogging:

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Raising Milk Goats Is Profitable New Hobby

AT SYRACUSE, N.Y., a few weeks ago, men and women from all over the United States gathered in solemn conclave to discuss the joys and problems of one of the fastest-growing and strangest business-hobbies in the country— the raising of blue-blooded milk goats. It was the third annual meeting of the American Goat Society, the youngest of three American organizations devoted to goat culture and the registration of goat pedigrees.

Started thirty-odd years ago by a group of goat fanciers who imported a few pure-bred animals from Europe, pedigreed-goat raising now enrolls thousands of fans—including movie stars, farmers, business executives, and housewives. Known officially by the fancy name of capriculture, the hobby already supports three magazines devoted to goat news, three registration societies, and at least a dozen breeders’ organizations. Strange as it may seem to most Americans, who know only the smelly, comical-looking, tin-can-gnawing type of American goat, well-bred European and African milk goats are beautiful, intelligent, and affectionate creatures that remind one strongly of deer. They are scrupulously clean in their eating habits, and make excellent pets. Pure-blooded mature females, or does, bring from seventy-five dollars to $150 each, while a prize winner has brought as much as $2,000. Pedigreed bucks bring even higher prices. Bucks do smell a bit rank, even the well-bred ones, and for that reason must be kept by themselves in their own private barns or stables, but does are entirely odorless.

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I’m not sure what’s scarier, the picture of children in gas masks, or the horse wearing one.
And I love that they insist that being exposed to mustard gas is really no worse then getting a bad sun burn.

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GAS MASKS FOR ALL

ENGLAND is manufacturing 30,000,000 gas masks for civilians at the rate of 250,000 per week. By the end of the year they will be stored at convenient centers available for instant use. Italy has decreed that every new house constructed must have a concrete anti-gas shelter in the basement in accordance with government specifications. Masks are sold in Rome on the installment plan.

French drug stores sell masks. Russia has devised special models for children and conducts gas as well as fire drills in schools. Germany and every other European country have provided masks and fume-proof shelters for civilians operating electric power plants and other vital services. A Czech manufacturer is marketing a mask with a telephone and microphone attachment for the conduct of business as usual in spite of gas.

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This reminds me of Cartman. I can totally see that cop screaming “Respect my authoritah!”

Police Traffic Squad Rides Motor Scooters
A SPECIAL traffic squad mounted on powered scooters is a feature of the Police Department of Inglewood, Calif. Use of the scooters, which can travel at a speed of 30 m.p.h. and cruise for 130 miles on a gallon of gasoline, enables policemen to patrol longer beats more efficiently than they could shorter beats on foot and has decreased the number of cases of motorists who try to “beat” traffic lights at street intersections.