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unusual compounds find uses because

Electronics Tells The Chemist

By Shirley Motter Linde

THERE are about 750,000 known organic chemical compounds. Less than one percent of these have any known medical or industrial use!

The other 99 percent are a huge potential of untapped applications. They represent hundreds of thousands of chemicals sitting idle on laboratory shelves when they might possibly be useful in curing cancer, fighting viruses, killing insects, giving more gas mileage, making rocket fuels for space vehicles, producing new synthetics, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Four Things Science Doesn’t Know

FOUR processes which industry has used for generations without really understanding any of them were listed by Sir Frank Smith, British scientist.
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Finds Universe Built of Waves

ANOTHER proof that the whole universe is constructed out of some mysterious kind of wave or vibration, finer in structure than the supposed ultimate particles of matter such as atoms, has been obtained by a Japanese physicist, Dr. Y. Sugiura of the Tokyo Institute of Physical and Chemical Research.

The electric particles called protons, which combine with electrons to form all known kinds of atoms, have been proved to have the properties of waves, just as was proved several years ago for electrons.

Cosmic Rays Only Thing Immortal

NEITHER stars nor worlds, sunlight or heavens, can science admit to be eternal. Only one thing known to science can be called immortal—the cosmic rays investigated, among others, by the famous California physicist, Dr. R. A. Millikan. These rays may even be relics of days before there existed any universe as we know it now.

I love that picture on the first page. He really looks like he’s thinking hard. It seems like he was quite the bright guy.

The obituaries don’t say what he died from. If I had to take a guess, I’d go with the 60 cigarettes a day he smoked.

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Brainy Man Builds Better Brains

What does it take to be an electronics genius? Here is a profile of a young British candidate.

THE electronic genius of 27-year-old Gordon Pask hasn’t exactly stood the world on its ear. For example, his first invention, a musical typewriter, was simply too expensive to run. T Read the rest of this entry »

Take that creationists!

Fish Gills on Man Prove Evolution
A MAN with gill slits on his neck like a fish has been discovered in Germany and was examined recently by physicians and biologists at the University Clinic at Heidelberg. No “pre-natal influence” or other mystery is involved, the scientists agreed, but merely a “throw-back” to the condition of mankind’s fish-like and frog-like ancestors millions of years ago in evolution. A few human beings have been born with ape tails.

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Most Scientific Fiction Can’t Come True

by WILLIAM J. HARRIS

You’ve probably read scores of so-called scientific fiction stories, but the chances are you don’t know why most of these tales can’t possibly come true. Mr. Harris sets forth here the scientific objections to fantastic projects such as transporting a human being by radio and rocketing to Mars.
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Balloon “Sounds” for Cosmic Rays

ANOTHER object of exploring the upper air is to determine the increase of received cosmic-ray radiation. This has been measured in the stratosphere, as well as on mountain peaks and in ocean depths.

ARE WE DRIFTING TO CHINA?

IF YOU live long enough you may yet reach China without taking train, steamer, plane or rocket. For both North and South America are suspected of drifting over that way and scientists are figuring how long it will take, and observers from many parts of the world have sent in their reports to Paris for comparison.
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Screening Fierce Battle in Drop of Water

YOU might not believe it, but ferocious and cannibalistic battles are staged every moment of the day in the drops of water that make up the rivers, lakes and oceans of the world.

A few of these battles are to be brought to the screen for the amusement and amazement of visitors to the Hall of Science at the 1933 World’s Fair. What will make this feat possible is a special projector which throws on the screen in a greatly magnified scale what is seen at the eyepiece of a powerful microscope.

Drops of water containing various species of unfriendly protozoa will be joined on the slide under the microscope connected with the projector. The battle to the death will be primitive and unmerciful, for protozoa are hungry and they ask no quarter and give no quarter. The artist’s drawing above shows how the projector and screen will be rigged up for the show.

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Simple Electromagnet Does Mystifying Stunt

THE well-known barrel of monkeys could produce no more entertainment than an electromagnetic “circus,” consisting of a powerful solenoid magnet and a number of accessories, that you can construct in an evening.

And besides being a source of fun. such a device is highly instructive, and will serve to clear up many of the mysteries of everyday electricity for you.

The electromagnet or solenoid consists of nothing more than a quantity of insulated wire wound on a spool, and provided with a suitable base, connecting wire and plug. Read the rest of this entry »

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New Ways of Fighting Earthquakes

by Daniel L. Hazard
Famous Earthquake Expert

WILL the learned men of science, with all their vaunted weapons, ever be able to do anything about the earthquake, the world’s most mysterious and devastating convulsion of nature?

Of course, one might as well try to stop a quake as to control the arrival of hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes. But there is hope for the world in the fact that the newest scientific methods follow the sensible plan of studying the natural phenomenon with greatest care before attempting to solve its problems. These methods are now being followed by the seismology division of the U. S. Coast & Geodetic Survey.
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