I guess you just have to hope your burglar doesn’t read Popular Science.

Icebox Safe Protects Jewels

A NOVEL SAFE for the protection of jewelry, silverware, or valuable papers in the home is built into a mechanical refrigerator. The metal strongbox, fitted with either a key-type or combination lock) is bolted to the inner face of the icebox door. Be-j cause of its metal construction and its position within the heat-insulated refrigerator, the safe is said to be completely fireproof. The safe’s position makes it unlikely that burglars would find it.

Those are some well-dressed janitors.

College Course Helps Janitors Brush Up
A COLLEGE course for school janitors is a novel addition to the curriculum of Teacher’s College, Columbia University, in New York City. Given under the supervision of Dr. Henry H. Linn, once a janitor himself and now superintendent of grounds and buildings at the school, the intensive course runs for five days and includes instruction in the best methods of sweeping floors, polishing furniture, cleaning woodwork, and operating coal and oil-burning furnaces. Round-table discussions and student-teacher consultations are held.

New Airplane Stretcher Holds Patient Securely
Designed primarily for use in airplanes, a new hospital stretcher is equipped with straps so placed that a wounded occupant cannot accidentally fall out while a plane is banking, diving, or going through other maneuvers. The photograph above shows a French soldier, fastened into the stretcher, with his head toward the ground. The straps over his shoulders and across the insteps of his feet keep him from falling.

I’m not really sure what wearing a net over your head would protect you from…

Face Net Protects Boat Racer
To protect the faces of outboard-motor boat-racing pilots from possible injuries in spills, Mike Rogowski, Detroit, Mich., Outboard Association official, devised the protective cord face net pictured below.

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WATER WINGS of PLASTIC

The old-fashioned water harness has been outmoded by gayly colored swimming aids.

BY DON ROMERO

A MAN, a boy, and a girl walk to the edge of a swimming pool, dive into the water, swim the full 75-foot length of the pool, climb out at the other end, and briskly follow each other off the three-foot-high springboard, each slicing into the water in a dive which cuts the surface like a knife.

What’s so remarkable about this?

Nothing except that the man is a war veteran whose entire right arm and lower left leg are missing, the girl is a tiny tot who is not quite four years old, the boy is a 10-year-old who has been a victim of severe spastic paralysis since he was a baby. And until three weeks before not one of these people had ever swum a stroke in his life.
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Shoe-Shine Stand Built Like Merry-Go-Round
High-speed production methods are applied to shoe shining on an odd merry-go-round machine recently installed in a St. Louis, Mo., bootblack parlor. As indicated at the right, a customer takes one of the eight seats that face outward on the circular device, places his shoes on foot-rests, and is slowly turned around while six operators perform the separate tasks of cleaning, polishing, and buffing. At the end of one minute, the customer’s shoes are neatly polished.

New Phone Attachment Dials Numbers Wanted
Twelve numbers frequently called are automatically dialed on a telephone by a new mechanical attachment. When the user sets a pointer at a desired number and presses a lever, the apparatus spins the dial.

Electronic Check and Double-Check
What has a lady wearing a fur coat to do with electronics? The schematic being studied by the miss in mink is the brain that will guard her valuable garment when she puts it in storage for the summer.

But how do we know that safety devices are always alert? After all, even electronic watchdogs go to sleep sometimes.
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Ready-Made House Costs $500

Equipped with a stove, refrigerator, window screens, dining table, couch, and other home accessories, a new type of prefabricated house costs less than $500. Designed as a first unit to which later additions may be made, the factory-built structure includes living room, dinette, and kitchen, with folding beds for four people.

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What You Should Know About DIATHERMY

New rigid controls enforced by FCC prevent communication snag EARLY IN 1954, a Chicago housewife innocently became responsible for the murder of a bank guard and the subsequent escape of the criminal with over $10,000 in unmarked Federal bills. Her rented diathermy machine had jammed radio police calls emanating from a local police transmitter, preventing the prowl cars from receiving the robbery tip-off in time.

In the same year, the FCC published warnings that illegal diathermy machines had been known to interfere with instrument landing signals, causing the crash of at least one large airliner, and had blocked a nearby radar screen used by airports to prevent midair collisions. Another terrifying story was told of a doctor’s ultra-short-wave machine which had thrown a guided missile—the new Army NIKE—off its course and started it homing toward the doctor’s office itself. Only at the last moment was the tragedy averted by emergency control from the ground.
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Diver Hunts Sea Monster
Reports of a weird aquatic monster in the waters of White River in Arkansas led to the curious event pictured at the right. Armed with an eight-foot, steel spear, a professional diver clad in rubber suit and helmet was lowered to the river bottom in an attempt to locate the strange creature. So far, however, no explanation of the rumors has been discovered.

UNUSUAL FEAT RAISES TREASURE SHIP

In one of the most remarkable salvaging operations ever undertaken, the steamer Islander, believed to contain $4,000,000 in gold, has been lifted from her resting place in 365 feet of water and placed high and dry on an Alaska beach. Divers reached the sunken steamer and attached cables from a boat on the surface. With these lines the treasure ship was lifted and towed to shallow water. There another surface ship was joined to the first by means of heavy trusses and cables were suspended from the bridge thus formed. With these cables the ship was brought to the surface and beached.