Diminutive Dynamo. Only one-fourth the size of a match’s head and set in half of a small pearl, this dynamo speeds at 6,000 rotations a minute and generates electricity that can actually be measured by an electrometer. Made by M. Fernand Huguenin, Swiss watchmaker, the machine has 46 stainless steel parts, some of which can [...]
Something New!
1000 LAUGHS NOVELTY SENSATION
Lots of fun for you and your friends. By pressing the head downward the jackass will extend a cigarette for your guests. Movable head and tail, design shows Mexican wearing large hat and shawl sitting on the jackass.
STOP CUSSIN’ USE 2-WAY SPECIAL INSECT REPELLENT Nash & Kinsella Labs., Inc. – St Louis, Mo.
THREE CENTS—the price of a postage stamp-is not much of a gamble, and the stakes are high! If you are discontented, unhappy, not getting ahead ... if you are worried about rising living costs and what you are going to do when the war is over ... if you want to feel equal to other people mentally and financially . . .
It looks like China has been thinking about the Three Gorges Dam for a long time. CHINA’S DREAM DAM BIGGEST irrigation, power, and flood-control dam on earth is projected for China’s Yangtze River about 300 miles east of Chungking. Dam will impound water to irrigate 10,000,000 acres. Hydroelectric plant will generate three times power of [...]
What goes on in the emulsion that coats film is shown by simple test-tube experiments.
By TRACY DIERS
THE film in your camera is thinly coated with one of the most unstable chemicals known to man. Silver bromide is its name, and from the moment of its birth it is kept in a cradle of darkness until in your camera a swift shaft of light seeks it out. The intricate and far-reaching changes brought to silver bromide by that flash of light are in part still secrets of nature. Much of what happens in your camera and in the darkroom is known, however, and can be shown at home with a few chemicals in a test tube.
Quilted ASBESTOS MITTS they last twice as long These asbestos mitts for handling hot metal molds and shapes are reversible to fit either hand. Both sides quilted, won’t shred or fray on rough, jagged material. Double wear, double life. Wool lined. All seams double stitched. The answer to troublesome problems. $2.20 a pair. Discounts for [...]
Movies For Passengers on Long Plane Hops FULL-LENGTH movies, news-reels, or shorts can be shown to airplane passengers by a new self-contained projection unit (right). Developed by the Air Transport Command and Army Signal Corps, the outfit also provides radio broadcasts and recorded music from sound films, a program being heard either through a loudspeaker [...]
New machines ready to serve at the drop of a coin
A New York restaurant has substituted machinery for waiters. The diner needs only to write out the order and drop the card into a slot in the table, as above (see PSM, Apr. '40, p. 126). In a basement kitchen the food is prepared and, course by course, served through the center of the table, which operates like a dumb-waiter (right) by hand or hydraulic power, compressed air, or electricity.
POWERFUL JETS CAN STOP CAR IN HALF NORMAL BRAKING DISTANCE
By Capt. G. C. MacDonald
ROCKET propellants, cased in special jet housings under the hood, may be used on future passenger cars and trucks as spectacularly efficient emergency brakes.
What is believed to be the first vehicle using jet emergency brakes has already been tested at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory, Cumberland, Md., with the writer serving as test driver. An ordinary jeep, provided with a safety belt and a steel pyramid for protection in case of upset, was fitted with two jet thrust units mounted beside the hood at an angle of 45 deg. Segments of the wheels were painted white to permit high-speed camera analysis of wheel behavior during stopping.
FREE COLLECTORS RARITY Hitler’s GENERAL STAFF IDENTIFICATION PATCH COLLECT RARE MILITARY SHOULDER PATCHES Start a collection now of hard-to-get. famous U.S. and foreign military shoulder patches. Take your pick of Army, Navy. Marine, Air Force. German, Jap, RAF and other foreign insignia, in bright colors and fascinating designs. Send $1.00 for Famous Group of 20 [...]
Audible Police Blotter SOUND MOVIES give the Los Angeles police an additional means of recording automobile accidents. Communications equipment from B-29s is now in use in patrol cars.
This is how they make Google Maps. Australian Device Makes Maps Of the Ground It Covers The odd apparatus at left is the Australian “co-graph,” which automatically maps the ground over which it moves. Named for its inventor, Lt. Col. H. J. F. Coe, the machine can be operated by a pedestrian or set up [...]
$250,000 California sample shows what science can do for homes.
A $250,000 HOUSE with every available postwar convenience, and some not yet lor sale, has been built by a Los Angeles contractor to show how much scientific luxury a home can otter. Fritz B. Burns, who with Henry J. Kaiser plans to produce 10,000 moderately priced prefabricated houses for crowded Californians by next June, knows that his palace of improvements is way out of the average house hunter's reach. But purchasers will demand some of these conveniences in low-cost homes, he believes, and Burns and Kaiser intend to provide them.
Electric Chicken Plucker Lay a scalded chicken or turkey against the whirling 4-1/2-inch rubber fingers of this electric machine, and in a jiffy the bird will be stripped of feathers. Half a minute per chicken is average. Machine is made by Mercury Company, Los Angeles, Calif.
