SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 183, 2 August 1913, Page 15

SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

CRAB'S 120-MILE CRAWL. A marked crab that had been caugh-t off Catterline. on tho Kineardineehire eoa.it. was cent to the fiwheriee officer at Aberdeen fur examination, and it has now been ascertained that the cnvb was liberated -at Beadnell, Northumberland on October <). lf)12. This ie probably a record in "crab crawling." as Catterline is some 120 miles from Beadnell. LEFT-HAXDED PECSPLE AS TALKERS.

Speech is controlled in a section of the brain just on the left side. The result m logically that if your brain is better developed on the right eide. your ability to talk eloquently, to make *peec!ies. and carry on brilliant conversation is not ah great an it would -be if the left eide of the brain were s-trooger. You are also inclined to be ieft-handed with j> stronger section of the bruin on the right riicle. Consequently, left-handed people are not good sreech-makers and talkens. USE OF MARBLE IX LIGHTING. It is reported that patents recently have been taken out in Kermany lor using marble instead of glass in lamps. which medium has the effect of making the illumination scarcely distinguished from daylight. A number of experiments have been made witli tinted and patterned types of glass, with the idea of producing this effect. Marble was planed down until it is difficult to realise that it is artificially lighted—tensities of light, were shown from behind. The result was exactly what so many hundreds of experiments 'Uail failed to produce. Developing this discovery, the inventors fitted lights to the cornice of a room so that it was somewhat transparent. THE INSKCTS AHE SAXDOWS. If you were as strong, proportionate!;.', as the beetle ». and were a man weighing ii couple of hundred pound*, yon would ho able in lift with ease 400.000 pounds, For a beetle can lift a weight that i.* just 200 times it- own weight. Or if you could jump about with the same ease as the grasshopper you could spring over the tallest building in the city district without elTect. Or. again, if you wanted to 1«> nearly as strong a<- the bee you would have to drag after you a load weighing 4.000 pounds.

Jt peem.*. apparently, from smell ob?crvations made by naturalist? that the. greater in size the animal the great-T is the muscular energy needed to move it about, and that there is not much left for outside force. BIRDS ACT AS CUOtODILKS' TOOTHPICKS. Explorers and naturalist* are constantly proving that the extraordinary stories told by Herodotus arc literally true, instead of being, as most of us were taught at school, the figments of a picturesque imagination. The most recent story to receive scientific confirmation is that of the crocodiles in Egypt, which lie open-mouthed on the banks of the Nile while certain binU come and pick the leeches from their gums. Edward Step in "".Messmates: A Book of Strange Companionships in Nature." says it is :\ fact that the Kgyptian plovers actually do pick the teeth of the crocodiles, i th-ough it is sti'l uncertain whether the birds pick leeches or fragments of food from the saurian*' jaws. Science, remarks Mr. Step, has had to admit this, somewhat reluctantly, to be true. THK GLOW WORM. Consider the glow worm of the lie' , .!. how it glows, is the moral inculcated by M. Daniel BertbHot in his presidential address before the National Society of Electricians. Kor the glow worm, i , appears, as a machine for the production of light is perfection itself. It has the sun, in the words of ex-President Roosevelt, beaten to a pitiable frazzle. As to gas and electric light, one in almost ashamed to mention them in the same sentence—such is their criminal waste ot energy in producing heat when only light is required of them. Here are the humiliating figures—gas 1.2 per cent on every 100 units of energy expended, electric light J. 5. the. sun J 4 per cent, and the glow worm, with its cold, dry light, 10U per cent. This admirable result, the lecturer explained, the glow worm produced by a '"electro-capillary apparatus," constituted hy thousands of cells. Future systems of lighting should, it follows, take the glow worm as their model. WHY WE ARK RIGHT-HANDED. iir. J-ieopold Katseher discusses in "Knowledge" for June the interesting theories that have been advanced to explain why we are right-handed.. At first, it has lieen contended, men used both anus indifferently, and those who when fighting pushed the right side forward had the advantage of shielding their hearts, and so lived to produce descendants who inherited , their tendencies. Be this as it may. there is no doubt but that the two sides of the brain have different functions, and right or left -handedness is by no means restricted to the arms alone. One investigator wa-s very often able to recognise lefl-handedncss by the examination of the irJt eye. The centre of speech is on the left fide of the brain of a righthanded person and on the right side of thit of a left-handed person. Children show unmistakable evidence of two speech centres, ■though one atrophies owing to the preference given to one hand. Nevertheless experiments show that it can bo successfully resuscitated. CORK PAPER AND ITS USES. Enormous quantities of cork are used annually for making 5 - on cigarettes. For this purpose the cork is converted into very thin sheets which constitutes what is known as cork paper. Those sheets are exceedingly thin, and come in the market, 4i inches in width anil ■G, 7. S. 9, and 10 inches iv length. A package of about 250 sheets is scarcely an inch thick. Jt is estimated that approximately A.' 100,000 worth of cork :s

converted into cork paper every year, and almost all of this is used /or making tips on cigarettes. The thin cork is pasted on long sheets of paper, whk'li are passed between rollers and automatically covered with paste, while girle with deft fingers lay on the cork and smooth it down ac the paper passes along. Alter this the sheets are passed through the cutting machines, in which they are divided into 8 strips i-inch wide and wound on reels for use in the automatic cigarette tippers. Each of these machines has a capacity of 10,000 sheets of cork paper a day. The total number of sheete used in the world is about 100,000,000, or about a quarter billion square feet. The cigarette tipping machines have a. capacity of about 60,000 cigarettes daily. The cost of the finished tips to the cigarette manufacturer is from 4id to Kid a thousand.