view additional pages

NEW in SCIENCE

Sharpnel-Proof Vest is displayed by Pfc. Ralph Barlow of Redondo Beach, California. While in front line action in Korea, Barlow was hit by shrapnel and knocked to ground, but received no serious injury. Vest stopped the metal fragment.

Bell X-5 is undergoing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It is our first plane able to change the sweep of its wings in flight from the most forward position, top, to a fully sweptback position, bottom, in 30 seconds. It is jet propelled.
Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

Sun Power

SCIENTISTS for some years have been conducting surveys on the sun’s radiation, to see how it fluctuates. A daily and seasonal variation is found, separate and distinct from the seasons caused by the earth’s own motion. In the dry, cloudless regions where this is done, practically the whole intensity of the sun is received through dry, thin air; and objects placed “in the sun” become very hot. Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

Lightning—Man’s and Nature’s

BALL lightning, one of the rarest of atmospheric phenomena, has been seen by few people. It sometimes appeared during an electrical storm, in the shape of globes of what seemed to be like flame, a few inches in diameter, moving slowly through the air, and bursting with a loud explosion when they struck some grounded object.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sun Supplies Heat For This House
OLD SOL provides the heat for the hot water system in this new sun laboratory, recently completed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research on using the sun rays for house heating and power generation. The man on the roof is Dr. Byron B. Woertz, research assistant, who is inspecting energy collectors, or “heat traps,” in which circulating water is heated by sunlight and stored in a large basement tank for future use.

view additional pages

Why Don’t We Have… SUN POWER

Old Sol has more energy than all the atom bombs in the world lumped together. And it’s free … if we can find a way to harness it.

By Frank Tinsley

EVER since James Watt built the first steam engine, inventors have been trying to harness the sun’s heat to stoke their boilers because the sun is the mightiest heat source known to man. Every hour, it floods the earth with a deluge of thermal energy equal to 21 billion tons of coal. Every day, the sun pours more potential power upon our land areas than all mankind’s muscle, fuel and working waterfalls have generated since the beginning of time. Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

Rubber from the SUN – and Power Too!

Amazing experiments conducted on the American desert point the way toward the day when the sun will be the universal source of power for industry—and also the manufacturing source of rubber, nitrates, and other organic compounds. This authentic article explains how such results were achieved, and describes probable future developments.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sun Furnace May Vaporize Diamonds
A HEAT of 4500 degrees centigrade, intense enough to turn a diamond into vapor and to melt any known substance, is expected to be generated in an amazing new solar furnace which derives its heat directly from the sun. Eighty per cent of the sun’s heat is expected to be captured by the furnace, which has been designed by scientists of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. It consists of a mounting similar to that of a telescope which always follows the sun, upon which are 19 lenses which focus the sun’s rays on a central spot within the apparatus.

Solar cells on top of helmet power a tiny transmitter and receiver during daylight. The silicon cells also charge four small storage batteries to operate the set at night. (U. S. Army Photo)

Big Bee-hive Gets Water From Air

AN ODD “drinking water fountain” in Europe acts as a giant artificial spring, condensing the moisture of the air.

The thick brick walls keep the inside of the stone structure at a lower temperature than the outside, so that moisture condenses on the thousands of stone slates.

I don’t buy it. Hair dryers use a LOT of electricity. Plus, unless they have some sort of flywheel or intermediate battery, wouldn’t the power fluctuate if his speed alters?

Leg Power replaces electricity in this Parisian beauty salon, where Madame has her hair dried despite the lack of coal-generated current. An ingenious beautician hires unemployed 6-day bicycle racers to peddle away on a bike, the back wheel of which is attached to a small generator! The current runs 6 driers.

Origin of the ethanol lobby?

Urge Alcohol Gas for Farm Relief

FOR economic and technical reasons a mixture of alcohol and gasoline for automobile fuel is being recommended by farm relief advocates.

Use of the fuel by motorists would consume 680,000,000 bushels of corn a year, greatly reducing the crop surplus, it is said. The gasoline would be diluted with 10 per cent of alcohol. It is claimed the fuel results in greater power at considerably less cost.
Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

HOT NEWS ABOUT THE SUN

Not in the future—but right now—scientists are putting to work the limitless energy of the sun.

By Lester David

SOON, a native of East Punjab, India, will walk into the local version of the neighborhood hardware emporium, plunk down 80 rupees and buy a newfangled kind of stove. Back home, he’ll proudly unwrap the shiny gadget, set it up and tell his wife to start dinner.

Less than an hour later, she’ll call out the Indian equivalent of “Come and get it!” and the family will sit down to a meal—a meal cooked by sunshine in the world’s first mass-produced solar stove!

This initial Solar Cooker—a device simple to operate, easy to maintain and economical to use—is actually in production in India right now and is just about ready to go on the market.
Read the rest of this entry »