SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 188, 8 August 1914, Page 15

SCIENCE SIFTINGS.

ELECTRIC BOOKING MACHINE. The 'London District Railway Company ha.s now installed at Victoria Station an electric booking niaehjne.' The clerk lias simply to pull a lover and the ticket is out. printed, and stamped with number and date. By this method 100 tickets per minute are produced. MECHANICAL READY RECKONER. An "interest-computing machine" has been invented by a Hungarian. The instrument is said to be comparatively sraipJc and inexpensive. It i» about the vhc of a watch. On setting the hands «t the proper positions on the dial, the. amount of interest in each case is indicated on the face of the instrument. SHAKER-PLATED CORPSES. A Cferman professor ba-s invented a process of silver-plating deud bodies, co as to convert them into metallic images of the individuals ne they were when in life. CoM-plate can be used .if the relatives can afford it. But as the expense of silver -iplating a body is £2..')00, there are probably few relatives who ■would deem themselves justified, in squandering tlie deceased's estate on tin eh a memorial. SPONGES AS A FERTILISER. Mr. Joseph <"!. Smith, of the United States 'Bureau of Soils, ha* culled attention to the present use and future possibilities of the loggerhead sponges of the Florida Keys »ie -.i fertiliser. They are said to grow in countless thousands in shallow water, where they are easy to ather, and citrus groves on the neighbouring mainland have been fertilised ■with them with very satisfactory re•ults. IN'NOOUIJATED RABBITS STOUKs. A theft Hkely to be fraught with Dm ddrest consequence 'to the perpetratore. and perhaps to many innocent "people aa w«*l, has been committed in the suburb of Bouncho, near M»rseill*e. Thieves penetrated at nigWt in>to t>he garden of Dr. Bonetfoy, a bacteriologist, and took a mnnber of rabbits which had ibeen inoculated with the viraie of rabies, tufbercu■krais, typhoid, and ofiher deadly and eontagioue diseases. The police made every effort to trace the 'thievee Ibcfore they had eaten or sold the Tabbits, Trat co fur without success. A FISH THA/T SHOOTS FLIES. A fish that might be recruited in the fly-destTUotion campaign is the flyshooter, a round, prcfctily-striped nsh ■with -a .wide month nnd a projecting lower jaw (says "Popular Science Siftings"). It is able to squirt a jet of water with enough force and accuracy to knock a fly down at the distance of two or three feet. When the fly strikes the water he is promptly eot*n. But as these valuable fishes belong only to the fresh ■waters of Japan and the Asiatic coast, they cannot be rvlied upon to exterminate our outdoor inaeet population, bnt they may be kept in an aquarium with the gold-fish. PROSPECTING BY WIRELESS. At GoettiDgen, Germany, the society for investigating the internal structure of the earth declares it has discovered by wirelcse telegraphy subterranean springs and ore-deposits. I! eta-tes that it also lias ascertained their depth by the iise-of electrical waves aippKed according to the method invented by Prof. Leintbach of that chy. The Professor, on March 23rd, 1911. used wireless telegraphy for underground communication between the Potash mines in the northern Harz ■Mountain?, when he cent messages a distance of nearly a mile end a half at a level of 100 feet below the surface.

ELECTRICAL STERILISA'.?ION. The successful application of ' electricity to the sterilisation of mHk is re-ported-in "The Lancet. , ' After investigations extending over some years in the Thompson Yates laboratories at Liverpool University, it has been discovered that the effect of a rapidly alternating current ie to reduce to a minimum the bacteriological content of milk, while feeding experiments (on kitten*) show that its nutritive value is unimpaired. The results euggest, says "The Lancet," that we are within reach of-a process of milk sterilisation -which can be applied to practical affaire, and it is possible that a remedy for infected milk has been found. No details are given as to the cost of the process.