I think that this was one of the first really critical articles about Scientology.

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Scientology: A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind

The lights in the hall go dim, leaving the bronzed bust of the Founder (spotlighted) at center stage. From the loudspeakers comes L. Ron Hubbard’s voice, deep and professorial. It is a tape called “Some Aspects of Help, Part I,” a basic lecture in Scientology that Hubbard recorded nearly 10 years ago.

No one in the intensely respectful Los Angeles audience of 500—some of whom paid as much as $16 to get in—thought it odd to be sitting there listening to the disembodied voice. Among believers, Scientology and its Founder are beyond frivolous question: Scientology is the Truth, it is the path to “a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war . . .” and “for the first time in all ages there is something that . . . delivers the answers to the eternal questions and delivers immortality as well.”

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Sure, why wouldn’t everybody want the government to have their fingerprints?

Fingerprinting All Safeguards Each Citizen

Fingerprints of citizens are being made by state and federal agencies at the rate of tens of thousands per month, as a result of the Department of Justice plea that every law-abiding person in the United States volunteer for the work. A complete file would contain 125,000,000 sets of fingerprints. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the federal bureau of investigation, points out that fingerprint records help authorities in making speedy identification of persons rendered unconscious in accidents, persons suffering from loss of memory and persons who die with no identifying papers or marks in their clothing.

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Effective in the “reducing process”? I didn’t know that bubble baths helped you lose weight. Maybe they are talking about all the calories you’ll burn convulsing when your bath water shorts out the bubbler and electrocutes you.

Bath in Ocean of Soapsuds Is Latest Reducing Method

SLEEPING in the clouds has nothing on the “bubble bath,” the latest novelty in the way of health gadgets. This device consists of a waterproof electric motor and pump, which connects with a series of long perforated metal tubes placed in the bottom of the bathtub. Air emitted from these tubes causes the water in the tub to bubble and splash like a miniature surf.

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This is even more insane then the auto-kennels we’ve covered before. I really hope the reason that this is a drawing is that no one would actually strap their dog to the side of their car.

Dog Rides Comfortably in Sack on Running Board
When you take your dog along for a ride, but prefer not having it inside the car, it can ride safely and comfortably in this sack, which is carried on the running board. The bottom of the sack is clamped to the running board and the top is fastened to the lower part of an open window with hooks, covered with small rubber tubing to prevent marring the car.

Latest Clock Has a “Voice” to Announce Time

Sleepyheads may be awakened in the near future by a clock which announces in clear tones, “Seven o’clock,” or whatever the hour may be. Such a clock has been developed by a communications laboratory. It has an odd caricature face and a “voice” circuit which will put the exact hour into words. It is synchronized with a nationwide time service. The clock may be used as a train announcer, with a microphone connected into the speech circuit for making announcements other than telling the time.

Pocket Fire Escape Wound on Reel Is Safeguard in Tall Buildings

To demonstrate the efficiency of a “vest-pocket” fire escape which he has devised, the inventor fastened one end of it to a seventeenth - story window railing of a New York hotel and lowered himself safely to the ground by clinging to the stout wire cable which unwound from a reel holder. A loop and snap buckle were attached to the end so that it could be quickly adjusted, and a spring in the reel took up part of the weight in descending.

The Electric Blanket Is Tested By “Maggie”

THE delightful creature in the bed is “Maggie,” the engineer’s solution to General Electric’s search for a substitute for a human being to conduct continuous tests on the automatic electric blanket developed by G.E. to keep its users warm whatever the temperature. Stuffed with straw, “Maggie’s” underwear contains insulated copper wires which give off heat approximating the human body’s normal temperature.

Hoodlike Gas Mask Protects Babies

Three years of research have solved the grim problem of fitting babies with gas masks, according to the British designer of the model illustrated in use below. Rubberized gasproof fabric completely incloses an infant from the waist up in a capacious hood with a large cellulose acetate window. A hand bellows operated by the parent supplies pure filtered air for the baby to breathe.

Nope, not another sexology post. It’s actually about making a belt.

You Don’t Have To be Good To Have Fun!

IF YOUR job or hobby is deep-sea diving or jet-plane piloting, either you’re good or you’re dead. Watchmaking and diamond cutting call for considerable skill, too. But there are dozens of pursuits less exacting that offer something much needed these days: the thrill of accomplishment.

I have an idea that a lot of people hesitate over hobbies because (a) they think they aren’t skilled enough, or (b) it’s too much work.

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Would this really work?

Legs Of Ducks Transplanted On Chickens Before Hatched

Legs of turkeys and ducks growing on young chickens, legs of chickens and guinea fowl on young turkeys—a grand general mix-up transplantation of drumsticks and second joints all around the poultry yard has been achieved by Dr. Herbert L. Eastlick, young University of Missouri zoologist.

These legs are all extras, too, added by tissue-grafting while the birds were still embryos in the shell, only two or three days along in their incubation. A very delicate and patient technique had to be used, chipping away enough of the eggshell to expose the embryos, clipping off the limb-beginnings of one and transposing it to another, and sealing over the hole in the shell with an artificial covering.

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DOCTOR DISPUTES LINK BETWEEN SMOKING, CANCER

The case against tobacco is derived mostly from statistical associations and some experimental work with animals, says Dr. Harry S. N. Greene, chairman of the department of pathology, Yale University Medical School. There is yet no sound proof that cigarette smoking is a cause of human lung cancer.

In a book, Science Looks at Smoking, by Eric Northrup, published by Coward-McCann, Inc., New York, Dr. Greene says this about his own smoking pleasures:

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If you can’t lie to your priest, who CAN you lie to?

Priest Develops Practical Psychogalvanometer

A PSYCHOGALVANOMETER invented by Father Walter G. Summers, head of the department of psychology at Fordham University in New York City, is said to be a practically infallible lie detecting device.

The apparatus consists of two boxes. One, resembling a radio set, contains a system of balanced electric circuits. The other, a milliammeter, produces a chart tracing of the emotional reactions of the person being tested. The combined apparatus amplifies the electrical charge inherent in the human body to such an extent that variations, caused by the emotions, cause a change in the tracing.