TELESCOPE EYEGLASSES MAKE THE BLIND SEE
Telescope eyeglasses, just perfected by a New York optometrist, will enable forty percent of persons incapacitated by blindness to return to normal work, the American Academy of Optometry was told recently. The powerful lenses enable a patient with only two per cent of normal vision, ordinarily classed as total blindness, to see clearly. Because of their high power the glasses distort objects slightly.
Kerosene Lamp Powers Radio
REMOTE areas of Siberia and China use thermoelectric generators like the one shown here to convert heat from a kerosene lamp into electricity for radios.
The 20-lb. device is being studied by scientists at the Martin Co., Baltimore, Md., where similar direct conversion principles have been applied to nuclear heat sources. They paid $56 for the Russian-built device.
A series of thermocouples is arranged around the upper portion of the lamp. As each set of elements is heated at one end by the lamp, a small amount of electricity flows through the pair. Metallic fins remove the excess heat.
DON’T USE A KNIFE!
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REMOVE CORNS ROOT AND ALL
Tin-Can Railroad
When a Georgia railroad man retired, he had to do something “to keep from going crazy” and naturally he turned to trains for his hobby. Using ordinary tin cans as raw material, W. E. Chester, 86-year-old Atlantan, has built himself a realistic collection of locomotives in his back yard. Occasionally, to add variety, he produces weather-vanes and whirligigs, using the always-available tin cans, but most of his time is spent fashioning locomotives of various sizes and types.
Great Inventions of Famous Men
by Aubrey D. McFadyen
SENATOR WILLIAM G. McADOO’S fingers were burned at a picnic when he picked up a metal thermos bottle cap-cup full of hot coffee. So he went home and invented a heat-proof cap. The Senator’s latest patent covers improvements in the familiar safety razor—the new razor being constructed so that the blade can be inserted or removed without taking the razor apart. To such casual inventors the world is indebted for most of the 2,059,187 inventions patented in the United States during the 100 years existence of the American patent system, the centennial of which was observed in Washington on November 23.
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Russia Builds Phone Booths
IN ORDER to popularize telephone service in that country the Russian government has placed public telephone booths on the streets of all large cities. In order that they would attract the public’s eye, large hand phones were made from sheet metal and erected on the roofs of the pay stations.
Amphicar Travels on Water or Land
PART boat and part car, this German import recently made its American debut. Dubbed the Amphicar, it has a self-supporting floating body—162 in. long overall, on an 80-in. wheelbase.
Its 4-cylinder 39-hp motor is water cooled and has four fully synchronized forward speeds and one reverse for on-land operation. For on-water drive, a switch operates twin propellers in the rear at forward or reverse speed.
The manufacturer says it will give 32 mpg on land and use about 2 gals, per hour on the water. The importer is Amphicar Corporation of America, New York, N. Y.
PISTOL FIRES RED PAINT AT FLEEING AUTO
So that gangsters and hit-and-run drivers cannot escape pursuing police cars in crowded city streets, a St. Louis, Mo., inventor has devised a pistol which shoots a small celluloid shell about the size of a hen’s egg. Upon hitting the body of a fleeing automobile it creates a large splash of red dye. This identifies the car as one wanted by the police. The barrel of the pistol is about two inches in diameter, and the projecting mechanism is a spring which will shoot the shell over 900 feet. The nose of the shell is soft rubber, underneath which is a pin valve that releases the dye.
Boy Builds Push-Button Farm
Around Fayette, Ala., 16-year-old Johnny Clive Williams is known as a wizard at putting electricity to work on the farm. Using such materials as old lard cans, hot plates and discarded vacuum cleaners, the youth has invented ingenious machinery for cutting corners. Johnny’s mother raises gladioli for sale to florists, so Johnny came up with an automatic machine that counts up to 30,000 bulbs a season and dusts each one with DDT. It does a 24-hour job in 3-1/2 hours. The lad, who won a Westinghouse scholarship, also built an electric chick brooder from a hot plate and scraps of metal, rewired the farmhouse, wired the barn and built in fans and lamps.
BUILDING A WORLD’S FAIR
By EDWIN TEALE
FIFTY MILLION visitors—a number equal to nearly half the population of the United States—are expected to journey next year to the New York World’s Fair. With lights and flame, motion and sound, this $175,000,-000 show will dramatize the progress and the promise of science. It will reveal the World of Tomorrow as it is foreseen today.
At this writing, the exposition site is a vast beehive of activity. The pounding of carpenters’ hammers, the crash of pile drivers, the roar of dump trucks, the machine-gun rat-a-tat of riveters fills the air. Buildings seem to rise overnight. A thousand and one projects are being carried out at the same time. Roads, bridges, artificial lakes, transplanted forests, synthetic soils appear as though by magic. The whole story of the 1939 World’s Fair is a story of science in action.
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He-man-size patio chess
Latest in chess for outdoors is the giant set at right. Molded of Elastic, the pawns are 11 inches igh, the kings 21 inches. Each piece weighs about a pound, but they can be filled with sand if high wind is a problem. Kerrco, Inc., Lincoln, Nebr., suggests setting them on patio or recreation-area tiles alternating in color like a chessboard. The chess pieces come in gold and silver.
Sound Tricks of Mickey Mouse
Squeaks, squawks, oinks and music—it’s another animated cartoon hit set to music in a brand new way. Read how the hay baler joins a symphony.
by Earl Theisen
Illustrated by Walt DisneyMUSIC and noises in the animated cartoon interpret the action of the story. The narrative theme of the music and what is called the “sound effects” punctuates and emphasizes the story.
By playing on the aural nerves with symbolic sounds and noises the psychological reaction of the audience is controlled and varied according to the dramatic and emotional needs of the cartoon story.
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