.Neon Signs Identify Police Patrol Cars
Police cars assigned to the park districts of Chicago, Ill., are now fitted with roof-top neon signs so that motorists may identify them on the road at any time during the day or night. Within park areas, the police automobiles travel at legal speeds so that drivers may spot them and judge their own speed accordingly. Even in heavy fog, the rooftop signs are easily visible, as shown in the photograph reproduced
at the left.
.Old And New Communication Methods Combined
Old and new methods of communication were combined recently when a Cincinnati radio station used carrier pigeons to speed pictures of a baseball game between Cincinnati Rends and Pittsburgh Pirates to its studio for immediate transmission.
Automation Edges out Tunesters, Writes Songs Wholesale
.The pianist above is playing a tune as it is composed by the electronic brain he gazes at wistfully. The complicated Burroughs machine can turn out 1,000 tunes an hour – all mathematically calculated to be popular. It picks off a series of coded numbers, matches them with melodic formulas, rejects sour notes.
This is the coolest freaking car. It’s like a combination of the Batmobile and a land speeder from Star Wars.
.Ground-Hugging Motor Car Being Made in Sweden
Cruising the streets of Stockholm is a new Swedish car, built so low it seems to glide along the ground. The little car seats two and is designed to sell for about $386. When the plant is in full operation, about 50 of the cars will be turned out each week.
It seems to me that this should be called the “Kiddie Catapult”, because if you’re ever in an accident your child is going to fly right through the windshield.
.Auto Seat Gives Infant Comfort
When the very young members of the younger generation go motoring they may now ride in comfort, thanks to a new auto seat especially designed for infants.
The device is, in effect, a small chair which is placed on top of the regular seat cushion. Side arms give the child support and a convenient footrest keeps small shoes from scuffing the seat upholstery. The seat provides the child with full vision and is said not to come loose or jar out of place. Straps furnish the necessary adjustments.
This is just about the most American thing I’ve ever seen:
.Big drive-in bank can serve 15 customers at a time
The entire street-level floor of the new Denver U.S. National Bank is devoted to customers who do their bankning without having to get out of their cars. It has 15 drive-in teller booths equipped with pneumatic tubes going to the other parts of the bank and TV to check accounts. Automatic light signals direct cars to booths as they are vacated. Over a million drivers can be served a year. Pedestrians bank on one of three basement levels. Four floors above the street can park 260 cars.
.Lure Holds Live Lightning Bugs
One night an Indiana fisherman was having trouble persuading the fish to strike even though they were leaping out of the stream to snap at lighting bugs. The following night the angler returned with a small glass bottle to which he had wired some hooks. He put a half-dozen lighting bugs in the bottle and used it as a lure with good results. Now the idea has grown into a new transparent-plastic lure which can be unscrewed and lightning bugs inserted for night fishing. The lure can be used where fishing with artificial light is prohibited, according to the manufacturer.
.Piped Light Aids Surgeons and Dentists
PIPED LIGHT, providing surgeons and dentists with powerful, sterile beams devoid of heat, glare, or the danger of electrical shock, is made possible by instuments molded from a transparent plastic which carries light around curves and bends (P.S.M March ’37, p. 43). The molded hand-held rodlike instruments have electric bulbs at their bases, powered either through extension cords from transformers that cut down 110-volt current to six volts, or by flash-light cells in a special base. Among the new plastic instruments are a tongue depressor that throws a concentrated beam on the throat of a patient, a retractor which serves the double purpose of holding back the cheek and lighting the mouth, and a long curved rod which casts a brilliant beam on the teeth.
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Newest fashion for women cyclistsBoth of these cyclists are wearing crash helmets – the lady’s a nylon-hair wig on a heavy plaster-composition base. Made by a London hairdresser in a variety of colors and hairdos, the wigs are the rage with women riders. Skintight, they are water-proof and can be worn on any occasion
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Egg-Beater Wind Plane Imitates Hovering Flight of EagleRevolving blades resembling somewhat the working parts of an egg beater replace wings and tail stabilizers on the “cycloidal flying machine,” an airplane designed to reproduce the best features of an eagle’s flight.
A seven foot model of the unusual craft has already been built in the aeornautical laboratories of the University of Washington by its inventor, Dr. Frederick K. Kirsten. The novel wing mechanism is expected to give higher speeds, hovering flight, and slower landings.
