To trap persons who insert worthless metal slugs in turnstiles, slot machines, and coin telephones, an ultra-violet-ray fingerprinting process has been developed.
PLAYS ELEVEN INSTRUMENTS AT ONCE Eleven separate musical instruments are played simultaneously by Elmer Trudgen, of Blenheim, Ontario, Canada, with the aid of the novel mechanical arrangement shown in the photograph above. Parts salvaged from discarded bicycles, sewing machines, and automobiles were used to make the foot pedals, levers, and other controls which enable Trudgen [...]
They’re not kidding when they call the dye “new”. Ultraviolet fluorescing dyes and paint had been developed by the late Robert Switzer and his brother Joseph in 1934 as described here INVISIBLE MARKS SPOT RANSOM MONEY Dipped in a new chemical solution and dried with a hot iron, ransom money is indelibly marked for identification. [...]
TEARDROP TRAILER HOLDS ARC-WELDING OUTFIT A streamline automobile trailer just constructed by Clyde Hocks, of Milwaukee, Wis., houses a complete arc-welding outfit. Built from scrap parts, the two-wheeled unit makes it easy to transport the gasoline motor and generator necessary to furnish the electric current for the work. A control panel is mounted in the [...]
Well, that looks accurate. MEN WASTE MORE ENERGY THAN WOMEN Women apply their energy more efficiently than men, according to tests made at Fordham University in New York City. Breathing through tubes connected to a device called a “metabolor,” subjects pedaled bicyclelike machines while experimenters measured their oxygen consumption. Results indicated that men waste ten [...]
FLY-SIZE MOTOR RUNS So tiny that it rests easily on a finger nail, an electric motor constructed by an Italian youth weighs less than an ounce. The Lilliputian power plant has forty-five Parts and develops about eight-one-thousandths of a horsepower.
WINDOW WASHERS TALK IN BROADCAST Perched on ledges high above the street, two window washers, one in New York and the other in Chicago, communicated by radio recently in a novel broadcast sent out over a nationwide hook-up. With portable transmitters strapped to their backs, the workmen carried on a lively conversation about their work [...]
RADIO LINKS SINGER AND ORCHESTRA Convalescing from injuries received in an automobile accident, a radio performer recently sang to her audience from a room in a Philadelphia hospital, while she listened through headphones to an accompaniment played by a dance orchestra in a plane flying 5,000 feet overhead. A dual hook-up enabled listeners-in to hear [...]
MODERN CRAFTSMEN COPY RARE INLAID FIDDLE Consisting of more than 10,000 separate pieces, an elaborately inlaid example of the viola da gamba, a six-stringed ancestor of the modern violoncello, was exhibited recently in New York City. The rare musical instrument is a copy of one made by Joachim Tielbe, a German craftsman, in 1690 and [...]
NEXT time you drive a well-placed tennis shot just out of reach of your opponent's racket, give some of the credit to the expert craftsmen who made the ball. How men and machines can turn out an endless stream of the white spheres, each an exact match for its predecessor in weight, balance, and liveliness, is shown in the unusual series of views reproduced on this page.
NEW EYEGLASSES FIT UNDER GAS MASK Eyeglasses specially designed for use with gas masks have just been introduced to the public in England, where the entire civilian population is being trained to protect itself in case of wartime gas attacks. Unlike conventional glasses, whose rigid frames do not always fit close to the head and [...]
PLANES’ RADIO MESSAGES “CANNED” FOR DISASTER RECORD RADIO communications between plane pilots and airport dispatchers are now permanently recorded on wax cylinders by an electrical machine recently installed by the U. S. Bureau of Air Commerce at a California landing field. Reports made by pilots and orders given by dispatchers, kept on file in record [...]
By WARD MADDEN
THE strangest fortification line on earth is being planned for the island of Hawaii. For thirteen miles across the flanks of Mauna Loa, the world's most active volcano, high barricades will dam and divert rivers of fire. This daring scheme is designed to protect the Hawaiian city of Hilo, with its 20,000 inhabitants, from the volcano's flow of lava. Science, for the first time in history, has declared war on a volcano.
BROADCASTS WORDS TYPED ON TAPE
FLASHING news reports, stock-market quotations, farm prices, and other types of information in printed form, an apparatus recently designed by William H. Peck, New York inventor and former U.S. Navy optical expert, has introduced a novel form of television news service.
At the broadcasting station, an operator types out the items on a continuous translucent cellulose tape which is fed automatically into a cabinet holding the television sending apparatus.
WHERE the sea throws itself shoreward in smooth, powerful swells, you will find the wave riders— bronzed, muscular swimmers who have studied well the whims of Father Neptune and know how to hitch their buoyant surfboards to the bounding water. Their shouts ring out above the thunder of breakers, as they stand upright on the polished planes of wood and rocket along on the forward slope of a swiftly advancing wave.
MAKING close-up "portrait" photographs of tiny fish and other forms of aquatic life is the unusual hobby of Lynwood M. Chace of Swansea, Mass. Clad in rubber boots and equipped with a net and pail, Chace scours the shallow waters of near-by ponds and marshes for interesting fresh-water specimens, which he deposits in a small glass-walled aquarium set up on a table in his photographic studio.
HUGE CAMERA READS METERS TO COUNT TELEPHONE CALLS Special cameras of new design are taking the place of human meter readers who check and record, each month, the number of telephone calls for which you are to be billed. In the larger cities, a single telephone central office may employ as many as 10,000 individual [...]
The lack of oxygen might make it easier to sell to prospective buyers. GIFT WRAPPING HELPS SELL NEW HOUSE By doing up a seven-room “model home” like a box of candy, in a popular transparent wrapping material, a Long Island, N. Y., firm of builders drew a crowd of nearly 6,000 persons to its first [...]
KNOWN as a "pipe perambulator," a curious vehicle devised by a Los Angeles, Calif., draftsman turns the city's new thirty-six-inch water-supply pipes into miniature subways for inspection men before the aqueducts are placed in service. Storage batteries and an electric motor propel the three-wheeled vehicle along the interior of a metal conduit while the operator looks for defects.
This is pretty great idea. TRACK FOR MODEL TRAIN IS FLEXIBLE Strips of flexible track, just introduced for model-railroad use, can be twisted and turned in almost any direction to make loops, bridges, sharp curves, or steep grades. Made of small, interlocking rail segments held together with coiled wire, the metal track has realistic wood [...]
