SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 15

SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

GIANT TELESCOPE. What is claimed to be the largest telescope in tbe world is now being constructed for the Carnegie Observatory j lon Mount "Wilson. The concrete pier which will support it has just been erected. Tbe telescope, which will have a 100-inch lens, will replace at the Car- | negie Solar Observatory, the present 60-inch instrument. By means of a new glass, it is predicted, photographs of stars will be made which hitherto have been impossible. WHERE THE FLY HIBERNATES. In time we shall know all about the house-fly—where it hibernates and howit happens to be so eminently suited for spreading diseases—for the medical reporters to the Local Government Board continue their investigations, and have now issued their sixth report. One fly, in the report, has won unexpected fame. It flew 1,700 yards—which is a record for flies. But the reporters, who include Dr. Gussow, Dr. Copeman. and Dr. Graham Smith, are still puzzled over their life in wintry quarters. They live in attics, under wall papers, in haystacks, and thatched roofs during this period, although it has not yet been established whether they continue to lay eggs periodically when hibernating, and this fact, when known, will help to explain why so many flies spring to life each summer from so few winter survivors. "A WIRELESS EYE." A '"'wireless eye," which will enable navigators to survey the ocean within a radius of several miles, even on the darkest night, is promised by Mr S. Spitz, a San Francisco inventor who is conducting exhaustive experiments at Vallejo. California. The instrument, which works only at night, reflects on a mirror a moving picture of everything within a certain radius, and the inventor claims that a ship equipped with his device need never fear collisions, shoals, icebergs, or similar dangers. The picture is reflected on to the mirror by what the inventor calls "Stygian rays" projected from a web of wires erected on a tall mast. Mr Spitz has interested two prominent capitalists in his invention, and he expects to complete his labours very shortly. During a recent test at Vallejo the observer saw in the mirror the ships in the river, the trains passing through the valley, people walking about, and even the sentries pacing their beats on the island arsenal opposite, all of which were invisible to the naked eye. CAUSE OF THUNDER. For a long time it was supposed that the noise of thunder was caused by the closing up of the vacuum created by the passage of the lightning, the air rushing in from all sides with a clap; but the intensity of the noise is rather disproportionate, and it is now thought that thunder is due to the intense heating of grass, especially the gas of water vapour along the line of electric discharge, and the consequent conversion of suspended moisture into steam at enormous pressure. In this way the crackle with which a peal of thunder some times begins might be regarded as the sound of steam explosions on a small scale caused by discharges before the main flash. The rumble would be the overlapping steam explosions, and the final clap, which sounds loudest, -would be the steam explosion nearest to the auditor. In the case of rumbling thunder the lightning is passing from cloud to cloud. GERMAN TAILOR'S LIEE-SAYING APPARATUS. Herr Paul Raschke, the working tailor of Breslau, gave last week a second exhibition of his life-saving apparatus by paddling from Lambeth Pier to Blaekfrairs and back on the ebb tide. Donning his suit, which is worn over his ordinary clothes, he jumped into the water and propelled himself, sometimes !by his paddles, sometimes by his hands. Presently he lit a cigar, and then, unbuttoning the pouch over the chest, he produced a thermal flask and poured himself out from time to time some liquid refreshment. Later a newspaper was throwH' to him from attending small boats, and this he unfolded and ; purported to read. On reaching the pier at Blaekfriars he tooje. oft* his suit and showed that his clothes, even to the stiff linen collar, were perfectly dry; while so far from being cold, he said he felt rather warm. In his native country, he states, he has been as long as seven hours in the water without suffering any discomfort. THE SMALLPOX GERM. The germ of smallpox, a protozoan so infinitesimal that it has passed through the minutest filters and escaped tho trained gaze of microecopists for decades, has (says "Science Sittings") been finally discovered by. Dr. Walter Fornet, staff physician at the Kaiser Wflhelm Academy. Dr. Fornet claims not only to have discovered the germ, but to be able to propagate it. This means, we are told, that it will henceforth not be necessary to inoculate a cow or calf with smallpox virus in order to secure lymph for vaccination, and consequently that a pure culture can be secured. The lymph won by present methods contains numerous bacteria, which must be exterminated before it can be used for vaccination. What further Dr. Fornet's discovery may mean cannot yet be told, but it opens the way for experiments along hitherto unknown lines in the treatment of smallpox. SAFETY FROM FIRE-DAMP. The Kaiser, in a speech delivered last year, called on men of science to suggest a means of preventing the loss of lives by explosions in mines. The other day he examined, in the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Dahlcn, a new device for giving warning of danger from firedamp in mines. It consists of a whistle which tests the composition of the air. When the air blown through the whistle is pure it produces a continuous ordinary whistle tone, but if the air conI tains 1 per cent of dangerous explosive gas a broken uneven note results. This is caused by the greater frequency of the vibrations in the pipe, i*nd the effect increases in proportion to the amount of gas until the danger point of 5 per cent is reached, when a succession of rapid throbbing notes are produced, which warn the miner of his danger. Professor Haber has christened it the "Fire-damp Whistle." At a subsequent meeting of the Kaiser Wilhehn Society the Emperor made a speech, in which he said: "Professor Haber has shown us fine progress, and I am delighted he and his colleagues have so quickly taken up and carried to success the discovery of a means of preventing fire-damp catastrophes in mines. The instrument which has been shown to mc appears to roe what is needed. Professor Haber i has found the way. His recording instrument, it is to be hoped, will entirely 1 rid mines of fire."