SCIENCE SIFTINGS

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 31, 5 February 1916, Page 17

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

WOOD THAT WON'T ROT. ■ According to the "Chemical News," a wood which will never rot has 'been found in that of the mangrove. For four years pieces pf mangrove wood'have hesn lying in soaking pits at Collonges, France, surrounded with all the elements susceptible of producing the decomposition and rotting of -wood in-a minimum of time, hut they have not yet shown signs of alteration. The quality is due tp the clcseness of its grain and the large quantity of tannin it contains. Mangrove wood resists twice as much •bendins strain as oak; it is easily worked, and is not Ibrittle.

FEEDTNG ON SUNLIGHT. Major Miraanond de la Roquette, of the French Army Medical Corps, in reporting to the Academic dcs Sciences the results of some observations in Southern Algeria on the relation between diet and sunlight gave it as his opinion -that the tissues of the human body directly utilise the radient energy of the sunshine. The normal diet of the natives of hot and sunny climes ds far lower both in quantity and in nutritive quality ■ than that of inhabitants of less favoured' regions, the sunlight seeming to make up the difference. ELFXH3UCnrY~SUPPLANT3 TOWILLS. Drying the hands by means of -a. cur•rent of warm air is a modern san'.tary device recently installed in a Washington office building. The electric hand drier is an upright cahinet about 3ft high. An opening at the top, over which the hands maybe held, gives egress to a current of air blown from within, and controlled by a lever operated by the feet. When the lever is depressed, the electric current is switched on the blower, and the air is forced through a heating coil, which brings it to a proper temperature, ■ says "Popular Mechanics." Thirty seconds is all the time, required for the drying process, and the cosf per hundred pairs of hands is just one halfpenny. HYGIENIC SUSPENDERS. U , i A surgeon lecturing to a class.of hos- , pital nurses in an English training school recently advised his hearers to I persuade their fathers, brothers, husI bands, or sweethearts to wear hygienic | suspenders. It seems.that the customary braces, which are dual in front but single behind, bring tbe s\ain in the wrong place, and cause stooping and narrowchestedness. These misguided suspenders are even the regulation pattern in the British Army. This is one of the things they do better in Germany. German army braces are double at the back as well as the front. A separate strap goes straight up and straight down over each shoulder, bringing the strain fair and square on the top of the shoulder. These are the kind that, according to this medical authority, we all ought to wear.

MUSHROOM POISONING ANTIDOTE. A cure for mushroom poisoning d:scovered by Dr. Louis Olivier, one of the most distinguished chemists of France, has been presented before the Society of Comparative Pathology. After a demonstration that mushroom poisoning destroys the red corpuscles of the blood. the doctor stated that his neutralising agent was a serum from a sheep. The preparation was extremely simple, lie drew the blood from a sheep and allowed it. to coagulate, the liquid resulting being his serum. This he injected into the veins of a human being. In the country districts of France there arc ar.nua.lv hundreds of serious cases of mushroom poisoning, which the society no* hi pcs may be easily cured.