Umbrella-Vender for Showers

WHAT to do when caught in a shower without an umbrella—that is one of the world’s greatest problems that has just been solved by the recent invention of an automatic umbrella vending machine which delivers an umbrella by the insertion of a coin in a slot. Devised by a noted German inventor, Herr Kreuger, the machine is placed on street corners, where it will be easily accessible in case of a sudden shower and drops an umbrella in a slot when the lever on the side is pulled down.

While the umbrella delivered by the machine is not particularly elegant, yet it sheds rain satisfactorily in an emergency and that is the chief purpose of the scheme.

view additional pages

“Fog-Drip” May Hold Key to Drought Relief

by CALVIN FRAZER

Scientists, spurred on by last summer’s disastrous drought, are still vainly seeking a method of controlling rainfall. In some parts of the world fog is a more important source of moisture than rain, and various methods, as described here by Mr. Frazer, have been proposed to make fog yield water during arid seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Motor-Powered Pencil Sharpener

PENCIL sharpening is an effortless job when there is used a pencil sharpener driven by an electric motor now on the market. Furthermore, unlike most hand-operated sharpeners, the new machine has a series of different-sized openings, so that it can be used to sharpen pencils of almost any size.

The device has an opening and a transparent case like the ordinary hand sharpeners. The pencil is placed in the open end, a little switch on top of the motor is thrown on and the little machine sharpens the pencil neatly and quickly.

view additional pages

YOU Can’t Always Believe What You See

by Walter E. Burton

HAS this ever happened to you?

You go to a photographer, look handsome or pretty as the case may be, and have several portraits made. When you get the proofs you select the pose that looks the most flattering, and order a dozen prints. When you receive the finished pictures, nicely mounted, you are delighted . . . and then it dawns upon you that there is something wrong with the pictures, but you do not know exactly what it is. Read the rest of this entry »

So Hollywood’s new figure is apparently being tan? Besides the fact that tan is not really a “figure” do we really need five pages to explain this?

view additional pages

HOLLYWOOD’S NEW IDEAL FIGURE

By Adela Rogers St. Johns

The Glamour and Charm of Lovely Screen Stars Are Heightened by a New Femininity Born of Sunbathing

THEY ask that question, “Is Hollywood developing a new ideal figure?” I say yes. A great big yes. New curves with all the glamour of the exotic boudoir, the sex appeal we used to talk about, plus the verve and honesty and beauty of strength and a figure made perfect under the suns and winds and perfumes of the deserts and the high places. Read the rest of this entry »

Good job Scientific American! Hard to get more high-tech than a bathroom dresser.

Household Inventions

INSECT CONTROLLER
Getting into the crevices where insects breed and multiply may now be done efficiently with the equipment shown above and to the right. The special container full of insecticide is attached to the handle of a vacuum cleaner and the blower attachment then thoroughly spreads the insecticide.— Airway Electric Appliance Corp., Toledo, Ohio Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

IDEAS AT WORK
A MONTHLY PICTURE REPORT ABOUT SCIENCE IN INDUSTRY

New turbines help meet soaring demand for power In New York, an electric power expert looked at a wall chart. A jagged line, crawling across a graph, showed a soaring sweep upwards. It was like the fever chart of a patient with double lobar pneumonia. “You see that line?” the power man asked. “That is the amount of electric power America is using today. If it goes up at the same rate in 1949 we are going to have to add more paper to the top of the chart.” Read the rest of this entry »

Huge Pineapple Water Tank
FASHIONED after a huge, pineapple, a water tank on the roof of a large Hawaiian cannery is the cause of much comment by visitors to Honolulu. Visible from all parts of the city the pineapple looks as natural as the actual fruit. Supported on a tall steel tower the tank measures twenty-four feet in diameter and sixty feet high.

Electronics Wizard

By Eric Northrup

EMIK AVAKIAN sits in his wheel chair surrounded by electronic miracles. He is a victim of cerebral palsy which has handicapped his body but not effected his brilliant mind. His condition inspired his inventing career. He says, “A man’s body is a vast intercom system serviced by a central transmitter, the brain. Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

IT’S NEW!

WORLD’S BIGGEST COPTER hefts 7,800-lb. van. Built by Hughes Tools Co. for Air Force.

X-RAY MOVIE. U. of Rochester (N. Y.) film uses shaped fluorescent screen to show inside-outside movements simultaneously.

SOLAR FURNACE used at Cal Tech for melting heat-resistant metals like thorium and zirconium hits 5,600 degrees F. and over. Read the rest of this entry »

LOTTERY-MACHINE RENDERS DECEIT IMPOSSIBLE

WHEN the exhibition-halls in the Kaiserdam, Berlin, opened for the 6th Internationl Bureau Exhibition, the first electric-automatic lottery machine in the world was among the many new inventions. This machine was created in an attempt to remove the human element from gambling devices. Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

THE MODEL LIFE

THE COSMOPOLITAN LOOK
BY VIRGINIA C. WILLIAMS

Tippi Hedrin, top-flight photographers’ model, leads a hectic double life. Monday to Friday she runs from one New York studio appointment to the next. On Friday she boards a train to Darlington, Maryland, and the farm where she and her husband, Peter Atwill Griffith, raise horses. For the next two days, Tippi and Peter can go about the pleasant business of leading a simple country life.