This is a really cute hack using model trains to transport radioactive materials throughout a hospital.
O-Gauge Pike Highballs Hot Cargo
KIDS long ago became resigned to seeing Daddy play with their toy trains most of the time. Now some grown men have taken over a model railroad full time—and they are not just playing. The miniature electric train carries highly radioactive radon gas, used in cancer treatment and research, back and forth between a storage room and a laboratory, eliminating dangerous handling.
The model—a standard Lionel O-gauge locomotive copied from the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG-1—shuttles over a 21-ft. right of way, hauling its “hot” cargo in a lead-lined flatcar. It is the first part of a completely automatic system for transporting radon in the Cleveland Clinic. Eventually, reports Dr. Otto Glasser, medical physicist, the train will be equipped with an automatic dumping device to drop the radon capsule into a pneumatic tube. This will shoot the capsule directly to the hospital’s surgery room. When this system is completed, technicians will hardly need come near the radon.
This thing looks like it would make a really cool unit in a Real Time Strategy game.
Artillery Spotter Has Vertical Lift
Pulsating through the skies in much the same manner as employed by the jellyfish in propelling itself through water, a weird parachute artillery spotter is expected by its inventor, John A. Domenjoz of New York City, to supersede the ordinary kite-balloon in observation work during war.
Greater maneuverability with resultant greater safety for the pilot, economy, and the elimination of ground crews are among the advantages claimed for this type of craft.
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How cool would it be to have a cover blurb on your book written by Einstein?
READ THE END OF THE WORLD
A Scientific Inquiry By KENNETH HEUER
Illustrated by CHESLEY BONESTELL
Can our world be totally destroyed? How? When? Can we do anything about it?
THE END OF THE WORLD explores the scientific possibilities among the ways the world actually can end:
• comet collisions
• moon, asteroid and star collisions
• the death of the sun
• the explosion of the sun
• atomic war
ALBERT EINSTEIN says: “Very good . . . rich in ideas and offers much solid knowledge in an easily digestible and very attractive form.”
KENNETH HEUER is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, former lecturer at the Hayden Planetarium, author of Men of Other Planets.
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Sadly, there are all too few surprise trapdoors remaining in operation today.
Holdups Thwarted by Burglar Trapdoor
IMPRISONING bank burglars by suddenly opening up a yawning pit at their feet is the somewhat unique and highly effective means which a recently invented burglar trap employs to nip holdup schemes in the bud.
When a thief walks up to a cashier’s window and orders all hands elevated, the bank employee simply reaches down — very quickly, of course—and pushes a lever, which operates a trap door before the window. The bandit falls through the door and into the steel-walled cage below. He is ordered to hand out his arms and then turned over to the police.
The trap door in the floor is adapted to be dropped from a normal position, at the same time sliding back the top of the cage as illustrated in the accompanying diagram. When weight is removed the top automatically slides back to cover the cage.
This is a pretty remarkable invention for it’s time. A color, plain paper, fax machine from 1946 that used colored pencils to print the output. The resulting image looks a lot like a printout from my first color inkjet printer. Sending a 7×10″ picture in full color took about 15 minutes, which seems pretty damn reasonable to me.
Tune In a Painting
PSM photos by Hubert Luckett
TAKE a good look at the front cover of this issue of your Popular Science Monthly. You are looking at something you have never seen before—a picture that was transmitted by radio in one operation and imprinted on a sheet of ordinary paper.
This is known as color facsimile. It is the product of years of effort to transmit an image by wire or radio and reproduce it perfectly on ordinary paper at the receiving point. It was developed by Finch Telecommunications. Inc., of Passaic, N. J. Finch labels it “Colorfax.”
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“one smart inventor has devised a ship that takes passengers to Venus, which is part of the way to the moon”
Wow, I had no idea Venus was so close!
And don’t forget: “These are no sissy rides, and if it’s a thrill you want, you’ll get it at the New York World’s Fair!”
Sensational THRILL RIDES Invented for N.Y. World Fair
HOW would you like to experience the thrill of a parachute jump— without the accompanying dangers of the ‘chute failing to open, of being blown out to sea or of landing in a tree? Well, that thrill will be yours if you are one of the lucky 60,000,000 expected to visit the New York World’s Fair after it opens on April 30. As a matter of fact, a safe parachute jump will be only one of the many sensations ingenious engineers have invented for the Fair visitor’s amusement. If the ‘chute jump seems tame, try the aerial ship which the rider can pilot himself. It’s safe, of course, because a cable keeps the ship anchored to a revolving pole, but you can turn or stall in a steep climb or experience the sensation of a power dive, if you are up to it.
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These are really cool. I love the idea of making scale models that you can actually sail around in.
LATEST BOATING SPORT… Sailing Midget Ships
By ARTHUR A. STUART
AMATEUR boat builders in many parts of the world are going down to the sea in midget ships. They are putting off in men-of-war, square-rigged traders, ocean liners, and superdreadnoughts barely larger than rowboats, yet reproducing in every detail ships that are famous in nautical history.
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Scientific Tricks of Master Spies
By Donald Gray
Amazing beyond belief are the scientific tricks employed by modern spies to help them carry out their dangerous work without detection. All the resources of chemistry and mechanics, ranging from secret inks to marvelous enciphering machines, are made to serve the master spy, as set forth in this startling article.
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Portable Globe House for Well-Rounded Living
Only 15 feet in diameter, low-cost home offers all the conveniences of a larger one. And, it can be delivered by boat, truck or even helicopter.
IT looks like a satellite that just fell out of orbit. But actually it is a down-to-Earth, low-cost portable home—with all the modern conveniences you would expect to find only in a more usual-looking (and usual-priced) house. Called the Kugelhaus (Kugel is German for “ball,” and haus means just what it sounds like), it is nothing more than a 15-ft.-diameter hollow ball. Its eggshell-like construction is of either lightweight reinforced concrete, metal or plastic. Just one inch of concrete gives good results, says the inventor, Dr. Johann Ludowici. The house can be completely assembled in the factory—with whatever furniture or other equipment is wanted—before delivery. As portable as a house could be, it can be flown to wherever you want it by helicopter, towed in by boat (it floats), or, more conventionally, carried on a truck.
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FLUORESCENCE
ITS RAINBOW COLORS MAY LIGHT TOMORROW’S CITIES
by Samuel G. Hibben
Director of Applied Lighting, Westinghouse Lamp Division.
AGE-OLD mysteries of flourescence and phosphoresence are being solved today because the demands of war and the foretaste of post-war electrical living have spurred scientific research and development, formerly dormant for several generations. A great incentive has been given to extend scientific studies of this subject—generally termed “luminescence”—through recent developments of the practical methods of producing the chief ingredient, “black light.” True, black light, which is another name for invisible ultraviolet radiations just out of range of the human eye, does exist in sunlight, but it is overcome by the much more powerful visible radiations.
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MOVIE CARTOONS Gain THIRD Dimension
MAX FLEISCHER worked a full year to produce 250 feet of motion picture film on one of the first animated cartoons ever to reach the silver screen. Alone, he made thousands of drawings, wrote the story, and did the photography. The animated cartoon was “Out of the Ink Well.” It made movie history just after the World War.
Today he has a staff of 225 people who turn cut a 650-foot animated cartoon every ten days. All of them are in sound, many in color and, latest of all, with three dimensions. The famous “Popeye the Sailor” animateds are leaders in the field; “Betty Boop,” “Ko-Ko the Klown,” and the familiar Screen Songs with the famous bouncing ball are known to every movie-goer. They are released through Paramount Pictures Corporation.
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CAN SCIENCE MAKE US LIVE FOREVER?
Look down into the Well of Youth through these pages and see Biology’s most recent and amazing discoveries. For “booster” hearts and human cold storage are just two of many longevity miracles the doctor orders for your descendants.
YOUR great-great-great-great-great grandchildren may live for a thousand years!
by DONALD GRAY
Let us assume that it is the year 2136 and this far-off descendant of yours has reached the age of twenty-five. He summons a scientist and says:
“I have decided to retire from the world for a while. Put me in a storage vault and leave orders that I be restored to the world of living men one hundred years from today.”
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