STARTLING STUDIES.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3162, 11 May 1931, Page 2

STARTLING STUDIES.

Curious Subjects Chosen by Investigators.

Scientists, in their quiet way, are quite as intrepid aa the more spectacular winners of Victoria Crosses, and it is not their fault that every line of research does not involve the risk of death or mutilation. When such • subject does present itself, however, the investigator seldom hesitates. A case in point is that of Mr. Van Campen Hellner, a famous big-game hunter, an authority on deep-sea fishes and a valued member of the American Museum of Natural History* The curious subject he has chosen to investigate is:, which sharks really attack human beings and their methods in offence and defence.

To get to grips with his Inquiry he sailed some time ago to the Bahamas, with the expressed intention of swimming in shark-infested waters, armed only with a dagger. With him went a cinema operator, whose job was to film the experiments from the vantage point of a glass-bottomed boat. The result may be to prove that the viciously named "tiger" shark is really quite harmless to human beings, thus relieving the apprehensions of swimmers in tropical waters.

Almost equally heroic was the task undertaken last winter by members of the German Anti-Seasick Commission. They spent several months travelling in two State motor ships plying between the Baltic ports of Swinemunde and Pillau, a route notorious for Us rough passages. During the voyages they investigated, by experiments on themselves and other passengers, the efficacy of many so-called sea* sickness remedies.

A less serious Investigation, with, however, quite as much human interest, engaged the time and energies of Dr. William Marston, a psychologist of Columbia University. Using two sen* sitive instruments —the sphygmomanometer and the pneumograph—in conJunction with a filmed love story, he proved to his own satisfaction that brunettes are more easily affected by erotic emotions than blondes. The interests of M. Rlchet, a Frencn prychologist, are more elementary- He wanted to know how many thought operations the average human being could crowd into a second, and he established the figure of 12|. His method was to make a large number of people recite the first two lines of the French national anthem, which contain sixteen syllables, as quickly as possible. He found that the average number spoken in a minute was 750, from whence he obtained his "second" average.

Two or three rather eccentric research inquiries come from the United States. One of them, carried out by an efficiency expert, resulted in the world-shaking conclusion that typists do their best work while seated at pink desks!

Five eminent scientists of America are devoting a considerable portion of their time to studying a single baby. They want to find out why she laughs, howls, plays with her toes, 'Bucks her thumbs, refuses to go to sleep, and does, or refrains from doing, the hundred and one acts of a baby's normal existence.

The extreme of American eccentricity is represented by the registration, last year, of the Noah's Ark Exploration Fund, Inc., in the State of Illinois. This body will have its works cut out The last heard of the Ark was about A.D. 776, when a flash of lightning was said to have destroyed the Ararat monastery, which contained what were alleged to be the relics of the Ark. And the site of Noah's vineyard, which used to be pointed out to visitors at Arghuri, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1840. So the administrators of the fund have no light task before them.

An allegation was made some tim ago that the floods along the Welsh coast were due to a tendency on the part of the British Isles to tilt from east to west. This conclusion, however, arrived at by amateur geological researchers, was laughed out of court by the professional geologists, who placed it lower in the scale of practical physics than the well-known "flat earth" theory.

The man-in-the-street Is accustomed to official prying into his private life, and he suffers it with considerable fortitude. But the Hungarian workman, whose life has recently been made the object of a statistical inquiry, is vaguely wondering why the authorities want to know if he plays a musical instrument or not, In what place he habitually breakfasts, and how much beer, wine, rum, liquor and brandy he consumes in the week! All these questions, and many more, appeared In the questionnaire submitted by the .Hungarian Statistics Office.