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Finding Radium Inside a Pig

RADIUM, used in hospital work inside tiny “needles,” may easily be mislaid; and a thousand dollars’ worth is almost invisible to the eye. Recently a tube disappeared from a hospital at Sioux Falls, S. D., and, though only 3/4″ x 1/16″, represented $3,000 value. A couple of scientists promptly improvised a radium finder from a glass flash and a strip of gold leaf and went over to the dumping ground. Strong indications of radioactivity —the leaf of gold in the homemade electroscope collapsing—were found whenever a certain pig was approached. So the pig was converted into sausage material, and in its stomach was found the little radium capsule— to the surprise of the pig’s proprietor.

The principle of the electroscope is that when it is charged, the same electrical polarity—whether positive or negative—is on the insulated metal rod through the stopper of sulphur, or other high insulator, and on the gold leaf attached to the rod. The gold leaf is repelled, and stands out at a high angle, until the electroscope is discharged. But if ultra-violet light, or radium rays, fall on the flask, the air inside it becomes ionized (electrified) and conductive; the charge immediately leaks off the rod and the leaf falls.

Chinese people don’t kiss? I guess if Popular Science says it then it must be true.

CHINESE THEATERS PASS HOT TOWELS

When American movies invade foreign lands, they are likely to meet with a strange reception, according to the customs of the country. In the theaters of interior China, an attendant stands at the side of the auditorium. When he sees an upraised hand in the audience, he wrings out a hot towel and deftly shoots it, sometimes as far as fifty feet, to the patron. The recipient wipes off his face and goes on watching the show. Before every kissing sequence in a film, an announcer explains and demonstrates what a kiss is, and what it means to white people. The Chinese do not kiss.
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I think I’m going to have to call bullshit on this one. Unless that’s actually a Kangaroo…

Texas Rabbits Roped Like Steers

THE jackrabbits they sure grow big in the Lone Star State. If you need graphic proof just take a look at the photo at the right. Believe it or not, but that thing hanging by its hind legs is a rabbit, and not an overgrown police dog.

These critters play a leading role in the rabbit roping contest held every year in the little town of Odessa, in Wild Western part of Texas. The idea of roping a rabbit does not seem so easy when you see what it is that gets roped.

Bugle Call into Megaphone Gets ‘em Up in the Morning

Reveille sounds painfully loud these days to the boys in camp at Fort Jackson, S. C. When the bugler sounds “I can’t get ‘em up in the morning” he steps to a huge megaphone that blasts his notes throughout the camp. Mess call, he finds, does not require so much artificial amplification.

That plane sure looks useful.

Hobbyist Strings Bottle Caps into Many Useful Articles
Out of the ash can comes the material for a Miami modelmaker. His hobby is fashioning household articles out of old bottle caps. Small tables, flower stands for the porch, and baskets are some of his creations, made by stringing the metal caps on old wire coat hangers. One of the largest articles built of this strange material was a model airplane requiring 2,200 bottle caps.

“Retired” Plane Finds New Job Guarding Fruit from Frost

Long since retired from the air lanes, a cabin plane once worth $50,000 is on duty today protecting an orchard at Painesville, Ohio, from frost. The airplane was once owned by David S. Ingalls, former assistant secretary of the Navy. It has been hoisted to the top of a forty-foot steel tower, where it rotates slowly, its propeller sending blasts of air over the treetops to prevent dew from forming on the trees and freezing. On one occasion the prospective 1938 peach and apple crop was saved by building a fire at the foot of the tower when the temperature had dropped to twenty-six degrees. As the warm air rose it was blown through the orchard by the propeller. Not one bud was frozen.

She’s Carrying The Torch
LORRAIN BERTELSON is playing with fire, as she demonstrates the world’s largest welding torch, a feature of the American Welding Society’s part in the Western Metal Congress, held recently at Los Angeles, Calif. Leading scientists on defense metals discussed new alloys used in our preparedness program.

Laminated Glass Bends Like Rubber
A PLASTIC glass superior to any previously used has been made possible’ through the use of Vinyl plastic in the lamination or sandwich construction of the glass. Although shattered the glass remains in one piece and may be rolled up like a carpet. A man weighing over 200 pounds jumping on the glass had little success in severing the pane although it did sag under his weight. While developed especially for automobile use the glass is valuable for show windows and display cabinets.

Builds Tiny Bikes As Hobby
BUILDING the world’s smallest bicycles is the honor claimed by A. G. Tabb, of Kidderminster, England. He has constructed several of the miniature cycles, the latest being 17 inches long and nine inches high. Many of the novel bicycles are two-seaters.

So theoretically I should be able to get high by sticking my head in the microwave? Sweet.

Cocktails? Just Tune Them In!
“Cocktails by radio” may become a reality, one radio authority states. A high-frequency radio transmitter which induces heat in anything placed in the path of its waves will be used to stimulate circulation in the brain, providing a harmless stimulation.

Dali’s Ovocipede

Looking like something dreamed up by Salvador Dali (it was), the ovocipede is a transparent plastic sphere that is propelled by the occupant, who runs along on the inside track like a squirrel in an old-fashioned squirrel wheel. The famous painter claims that the “vehicle” can be rolled over land, water, ice, or snow—the operator stands and holds the two hand bars on the axis, or can sit on the seat to coast. Steering is managed by shifting the weight along the axis in the direction of the turn. The driver turns around to reverse.

Chariot of 1938 Ben Hur Drawn by Four Motorcycles

For the Ben Hur of the motor age, no four-horse team would do. Instead, the charioteer—stunting in a sports festival sponsored by a Potsdam regiment in Germany—rides on a rubber-tired chariot drawn by four motorcycles. “Reins” in the driver’s hands lead to the handlebars of all four “bikes,” which are harnessed together by three horizontal bars. The har-ness recalls certain farm tractors which are controlled by reins.