May 26, 2009

New for the Home (Jan, 1951)

New for the Home

Springless Mattress, dreamed up by a Swedish inventor, is light, bouncy as innerspring types. It’s been tested for durability, is said to have orthopedic values. Secret is the core of air-filled plastic. Susquehanna Mills, N. Y. C.
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Learn While You Sleep (Nov, 1958)

Learn While You Sleep

By Lester David

The small voice under the pillow can teach you anything from self-confidence to college math.

HELEN McGRATH was fast asleep. At her bedside was a tape recorder, quietly repeating words into her subconscious mind. You’d never mistake the scene for a classroom, yet it was exactly that. Because Helen McGrath was learning Spanish while she snoozed!

For six and a half hours that night, one lesson was played over and over again, words and phrases burrowing deep into her mind. On waking, Helen played the lesson through once again.
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May 25, 2009

Eight Hands For the Typist (Dec, 1961)

Eight Hands For the Typist

Insurance company increases its policy-writing production by 400 percent with addition of automatic typing equipment.

Three banks of automatic typing equipment, installed in the underwriting section of the Combined Insurance Co. of America, Chicago, have increased the company’s policy-writing output 400 percent.

One typist operating each bank of four units can produce as many policies in a day as four girls were able to produce typing policies, identification cards, company records and welcoming letters individually.
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Envy the savage? Yes! (Dec, 1937)

Envy the savage? Yes!

This ancient savage had to work hard to get a fire — and his cookery wasn’t expert. But his rough, primitive fare exercised his teeth — kept them strong and healthy. We moderns eat soft, civilized foods — our teeth get too little healthful exercise.

DENTYNE HELPS KEEP TEETH SOUNDER, WHITER. You find yourself chewing more vigorously because of Dentyne’s specially firm consistency. Mouth and teeth get wholesome exercise, salivary glands are stimulated, promoting natural self-cleansing. Dentyne’s a proved aid to stronger whiter teeth!

THE FLAVORS A JOY! Spicy, smooth-tasting, delicious! You’ll welcome Dentyne for its flavor alone—and you’ll find the Dentyne package specially convenient to carry in pocket or purse (its smartly flat shape is an exclusive Dentyne feature.)
HELPS KEEP TEETH WHITE
MOUTH HEALTHY

DENTYNE

DELICIOUS CHEWING GUM

UNDERSEA SPIES (Feb, 1946)

UNDERSEA SPIES

BY JAMES NEVIN MILLER

BACK in December, 1944, Lieut. Earl E. Cook of Seattle, won the Navy Cross for a unique achievement. First, in a successful effort to locate three enemy depth bombs known to be in immediate danger of detonation, he dove deep inside a patrol bomber sunk in a vital channel off Oahu, Hawaii. Then for three never-to-be-forgotten days he directed a six-man team of divers which finally recovered the death-dealing weapons.
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May 24, 2009

THE ROBOTICS REVOLUTION – WILL YOU SURVIVE? (Sep, 1982)

THE ROBOTICS REVOLUTION WILL YOU SURVIVE?

By Steven K. Roberts

Robots—capable of two to three times the efficiency of flesh-and-blood workers—threaten to displace large numbers of people from jobs. Humans may prevail, but, strangely, the result might be mass unemployment, anyway.

IF YOU EVER want to get a spirited conversation going, just wander into an employee lunchroom somewhere in Detroit and start singing the praises of industrial robots. After you pick yourself up off the floor, you’ll probably become embroiled in a bitter dispute over worker displacement, Japanese auto imports, productivity and union contract terms.
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Women and Nerves (Nov, 1934)

Women and Nerves

Why Women Are More Subject to Nervous Troubles and What They Can and Should Do About It

By Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, m.d.
Bart., C.B., M.S., F.R.C.S. President of the New Health Society, London, England

IT IS a matter of common observation that women are greater sufferers from “nerves” than men. This was recognized in the classical days of Greek medicine when the ancient physicians described hysteria as a purely feminine illness, believing it was due to the erratic wanderings of the womb. Today, we know that this organ is relatively fixed but we realize that those early doctors were not so far out in their theory of causes and that much of the nerve trouble of women is centered round their sex life. The old saying that “because of her womb, a woman is what she is” contains a large measure of truth. Read the rest of this entry »

May 13, 2009

Trailer Saves Return Haul Costs (Aug, 1931)

Trailer Saves Return Haul Costs

A GREAT saving in the return trips of trucks used for the transportation of automobiles from factory to dealer has been effected as a result of the development of a new type of trailer. Built with rear extension that can be folded back, the trailer can be shortened so that one truck can be hauled by another on the return trip.

Triangular truss frame construction of the trailer makes possible a combination of maximum strength and minimum weight. The photo below shows the manner in which one truck is carried by another, without danger of accident on road.

MORSE CODE TYPEWRITER (Nov, 1959)

MORSE CODE TYPEWRITER

A HEAVY-FISTED ham was Willard Guthoerl—and no one was more aware of it than he. His brutality was spent entirely on his sending key, however; hams from coast to coast and beyond the seas complained of his Morse signals. Instead of trying to improve his fist he built—for seven dollars—an electronic machine that does away with the single sending key. Read the rest of this entry »

Exterminating Rats With Deadly Automobile Exhaust Gas (Jul, 1931)

Exterminating Rats With Deadly Automobile Exhaust Gas

“IF THE fumes from an automobile exhaust can kill humans, they should have the same effect on rats,” said the head of the Department of Health of Highland Park, Michigan. And so onto the exhaust pipe of a dilapidated Model T Ford discarded by the police officials, the health officers rigged up a rubber hose and established themselves as modern pied pipers.

The “hunters” first seal all the holes of the building to be operated upon, leaving just two openings. The hose is then inserted into one of these, the engine of the Ford coaxed to wheeze a bit, and the carbon monoxide does the rest.

They Grub for a Living (Oct, 1955)

They Grub for a Living

A few wheat beetles in a sack of chicken feed grew into a booming bait business.

By Shep Shepherd

BUGS can be big business. Just ask Marlyn A. Palmer and Ray Wiseman; they’re up to here in them—80 million of them every year.

Palmer and Wiseman raise golden grubs and sell them to fishermen throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada, shipping as many as a quarter-million grubs a day in busy seasons.

The golden grub is the larva of the black wheat beetle. It hatches from an egg, remains a grub for a short time, then goes into the pupa stage from which it gradually changes into a mature beetle. The complete transformation takes about six months. It is the larva, or grub, that drives fish frantic and sends anglers flocking to the bait shops. Read the rest of this entry »

May 12, 2009

“Perpetual Motion” Machine Makes Novel Window Display (Jul, 1931)

Filed under: DIY — @ 10:56 pm
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1931
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“Perpetual Motion” Machine Makes Novel Window Display

For novelty in window displays you can’t beat this “perpetual motion machine” as a means of attracting the attention of passers-by. Powered by magnets concealed in the tracks, the steel ball whirls round and round, bewildering those who pause to watch.

SCORES of people will walk right by an artistically decorated store window without giving the display a glance. On the other hand, another store window with a novel display catches the eye of every passer-by.
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