SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 37, 12 February 1910, Page 16

SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

typewriting by slot machine. The device of the slot machine has ftt last been applied to the needs of the business correspondent and man of let■tars. In Chicago they have invented a typewriter with a slot attachment which unlock* it automatically -when you place a nickel in the familiar mouth. You can then uee the typewriter for half an hour* at the end of which time it locks itself up again, and is only to be released by the expenditure of another five-cent piece. It is expected that this new invention will be in great demand in hotels, on ocean liners, in trains, and in other places where "transients" require a temporary accommodation of this kind. A MIGHTY SUN THAT DWARFS OUR SOLAR SYSTEM. , By means of the spectroscope, a very wonderful discovery has been made- respecting Slrius. Astronomers had noticed that this star was in rapid motion through space, as it was found that year by year it was changing its position In the heavens, traversing the dome of the celestial sphere at a velocity of not less than &0 miles a second. This constitutes the chief item of information about PiriUs at present without our knowledge. There Bfe*mS to be no reason to doubt that, in common with other suns, he has his systems of planets circling around him after the manhfer of our own sun; and what a system! Vast as ours appears, it is dwarfed into insignificance compared with d system whose ruling orb is five thousand times larger thai that which serves us. . TATOOING AN EYEBALL. An operation performed only a few times by the greatest eye specialists of the world was successfully completed in a Philadelphia hospital by Dr. L. Webster Fox, -who occupies the chair of optlialmology in the college. By the use of cix needles, Indian ink and a vegetable dye, the doctor eueeeded in tattooing the perfect semblance of an eye on a young girl's blind eyeball, which was covered by an ugly blemish the size of a five cent piece. Cocaine was inserted to destro}whatever sensibility remained (fays the New York "Worid") hut no anhesl-hotle was administered to the patient, who did not appear to suffer any pain while the operation was going on. Indian ink woe used for the pupil. For the iris a vegetable dye. which had been carefully experimented with, was employed, and the brown colour of the other atid healthy iris in the girl'S dye was duplicated. THE EXTINCTION OF WHALES. The Biscay whale was the first of these great creatures to he hunted. The capture of the Greenland whalo began in 1012, and in 200 years £ho unceasing pursuit of this species had driven it to the remote places of the Arctic Ocean. It is now so rare that it is hot worth while io send a ship out for the purpose of hunting it, and it! will probably never recover its numbers. An idea of its yali.o and former abundance may be formed from the fact that between 10(11? and 1?78 it yielded to 1400 Ptftch vessels about 57,000 Individuals, of which the baleen and oil protluoed a money value of £4,000,000 sterling. Of late years a single large Qrepnland Whale would bring £000 for its wh&lebone and £300 for its oil. These two grsnt Right whales, having been practically exterminated, the merciless hunt has now ■been turned on tho wilder and less valuable Finback whales. AN INTERESTING COMPARISON. The time which has elapsed fcincfc the first appearance of life on our earth has been variously estimated at 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 years. To tax our pnwers of comprehension as little as poseible, Dr. H. Pchmidfc, bf Jena (Germany) has taken the shortest estimate* and has tried to make Understandable the five great evolutionary periods through which life has passed by comparing them with a day of 24 hours. This is the result: The Archeozoic period (52,000,000 rears) is represented by 12 hours 30 minutes; Paleozie (34,000,000 years), eight' hours seven minutes; Mesozic (11,000,000 years), two hours 33 minutes; Cenozic (3,000,000 years), 43 minutes; Anthropozoic (IOOjOOO years), two minutes. If the last period; the age of man, be compared in its subdivisions by the same scale, it is found that the "historic" portion covers only five seconds, and two seconds are sufficient for the Christian area. ~~PLANT"LIFE ON PT.ANETS. Following the discovery of oxygen and water vapours in the atmosphere of our neighbour Mare there domes tho news that flowers and green foliage must be present on the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and more particularly on Uranus and Neptune. The discovery lias been made quite independently, acdording to the German journal " Weltall," by two scientists, one a Russian named Thniriaziew, the other a Dutch botanist. Beyrinck- In examining the spectro-photograipha of these planets published bj r Professor Lowell atid taken by tho well-known astronomer Mr. Sliphef, those scientists have discovered certain bands and lines which correspond to the spectra of chlorophyll (to which the greenness of green foliage is due) and red and blue colouring matter of flowers. As tho conditions necessary for vegetable life exists in Mare, it is possible that the existence of flowering plants miiy be tra-ced there also. EPICUREAN ELEPHANTS. An elephant's digestive functions are very rapid, and the animal, therefore, requires daily a large amount of fodder— OOOlbs. at 'least. Ih its wild state the elephant feeds heartily, but wastefully, As it is a nocturnal a.nimal, it selects its by the sense of towch and smell. Its sense of smell is so delicate that a wild elephant can wind an enemy at a distance of one thousand yards, and the nerVea of its trunk are so sensitive that the smallest substance can be discovered and picked up by it. An elephant's palate is very delicate, and the animal is ■whimsical in selecting or rejecting morsels of food. Sir Samuel Baker tells an anecdoto illustrative of the whims of a certain tame elephant. This elephant was fed with rice and plantain stems. Threequarters of a pound of rice was placed ■within each tube of plantain stem. One; day a lady offered the animnl a small, sweet biscuit. It was taken in the trunk and almost immediately thrown on. the ground. The maliout, or driver, thinking that the elephant had behaved rudely, picked up the biscuit and inserted it in a parcel of rice within a plantain Stein This wa3 placed in the elephant's mouth, and at the very first crunch it showed its dislike b.y spitting out the whole mess. The small biscuit had disgusted the animal, and for several minutes it tried Tsy its inserted trunk to rake out every atom from its tongue and throat.