NEWS CURIOSITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

NEWS CURIOSITIES.

JOTTINGS FROM WORLD'S PRESS. A memorial service "to all silkworms which have given their lives for the silk industry in Japan," has been held, in Tokio at the suggestion of a prominent silk thread dealer. A new branch of the science of Psychiatry has been christened "Psychobiologicalpharmacodynamics" in Philadelphia. A doctor, speaking at the American Psychiatric Association's Convention, stated that it is useful in the effort to arrive at a better understanding of mental disorders. While playing outside a farmhouse in the Trondelag district, near Oslo, a four-year-old girl was seized by an eagle, which dropped ker half way up a high and steep cliff. The child was quite unhurt when she was found, and said that "a big bird from one of my fairy tales cams and took me for a ride." There is a stamp of Jamaica which is called by most collectors "the blind official." The stamp owes it nickname to the fact that on it there is an error, both the letters "I" in the word "official ' with which it is overprinted being omitted. Obviously a 6tamp without "I's" cannot see, and therefore must be "blind." Picking up what he thought to be a fountain pen in the street at Montreal, Mr. Emile Vinet proceeded to examine it —and died, shot. While endeavouring to discover where the the nib was concealed he touched a 6mall spring which released a hidden trigger. The shot exploded, inflicting a mortal wound. The police believe that this camouflaged firearm was thrown away by someone who feared arrest. An investigation into the matter o£ twins is being carried out by the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology in Berlin. It is established that twins are found more rarely in southern countries than in the colder lands of the north. In percentages of the total of births, there are twice as many twins in Scandinavia I as in Italy and Brazil. In addition to 1 this geographical influence, that of heredity has also been confirmed. Another ira- | explained factor is that far more twins are born in the country than in the cities. The Musee Permanent des Colonies at Paris iias received a consignment or six i boarders from the tropical regions of South America in the shape of six fish called "Gymnotes," or, to give them their sciestific appelation, "Electrophorus Gymnotieus electricus. The fash is like a big eel. The interesting part about it is that it carries a real electric works, so to speak. While its essential organs occupy only about one-fifth of the body, the other four-fifths are occupied by its electric organs, these consisting of muscular tissues modified and transformed by a series of accumulators of from five to eight thousand elements—the most powerful existing of all known electric animals, being capable of discharging a current of 300 volts. A live fish was thrown into the aquarium—for the "Gymnotes" only eat fresh fish—the tail of the former touching a carp for the fraction of a second, killing it instantly with the electrical discharge.