SCIENCE NOTES

Northern Advocate, 13 July 1925, Page 7

SCIENCE NOTES

THE GAUGE OF ART

The elusive quality that makes a piece of music "art" when sung by one soloist, and "just a song" when ordinarily well sung by another, can be made visible and can be measured, Dr C. E. Seashore and Milton Metfessel, of the State University of lowa, reported to the National Academy of Sciences at its annual session at Washington on May 27. Twelve singers of varying artistic abilities sang "Annie Laurie" in the laboratory of the two scientists, and records of their voices were made on paper in the form of wavy marks by a photographic process. These wavy charts some more irregular than others, were displayed before the academy meeting. The distinct personality of the sound waves of each voice could be seen in the record, and the amount of artistic emotion expressed by each singer could be measured. The emotional quality in singing is not obtained by following the written score with strict precision, but by minute deviation from the notes, Dr Seashore says. A mediocre singer may sing more accurately than a great opera star, but the famous star has mastered the expression of emotion by subtle variations in pitch, time, and intensity. And, as everything that the singer conveys to the listener is conveyed by I means of the sound waves, a study of the sound waves shows every detail of the singer's technic and artistry. The photographic method of recording music is advocated for scientific purposes, because it produces a permanent record } with, minute detail. J CIRCULATION AND EXERCISE.

A quantitative measurement of the flow of the blood, sought in vain since the discovery of the circulation by Harvey in the seventeenth century, has at last been made possible. Professor Yandell Henderson and_Dr. Howard W. Haggard, of Yale University, described the new process a few weeks ago before the meeting at Washington of the American National Academy of Sciences. The method depends on the rate at which the blood absorbs ethyl iodide, a' harmless gas, when the latter is supplied in a known proportion in the air breathed. By measuring the amount taken in by the subject to the experiment and the amount given off —generally very little ; —the total volume of blood flowing through the lungs in a given time can be calculated.

Drs. Henderson and Haggard tested a large number of persons by their new method, ranging from athletes to heart-disease patients. They find that in normal persons the volume of the circulation is about twice as large as had been estimated. . During bodily rest its volume per. minute is about equal to that of the air breathed. During exercise respiration may increase eight or ten fold, and the circulation four or five fold. Hot baths quicken the circulation without greatly increasing the oxygen consumption. Oa the other hand, during exercise the rate of oxygen used increases with the increase in circulation. COCKROACHES AND EPSOM SALTS A new method of getting cockroaches to leave home has been put to test by Dr. Paul Mitchell, quarantine officer at Townsville, Queensland. In fumigating the luggage of passengers Dr. Mitchell noted that veteran traveller's sometimes used magnesium sulphate, better known as Epsom salts, to ward off vermin. As the linen closets of the quarantine station were populated with cockroaches, silverfish, moths, and a certain kind of ants, he cleaned out

the shelves, and scattered crystals of the salt over the linen of certain closets. Observations at the end of three months and at the end of»a year, showed that no vermin had returned to the salt-treated cupboards, and Dr. Mitchell reports that magnesium sulphate in closed spaces should be an efficient pest-remover. WHEAT GERMS RICH IN VITAMIN.

The action of vitamin "E," the re-cently-discovered fertility vitamin, whose presence in the diet is necessary for the production of offspring, was described before the meeting of the American National Academy of Sciences in annual session at Washington, on April 28, by Drs. Herbert M. Evans and George O. Burr, of the University of California. Certain facts about the new vitamin not hitherto made public were brought out in the discussion. The type of sterility caused by the lack of the vitamin differs in male and female animals. In the male a true sterility occurs, with death of the sex cells, and even the disappearance of the tissues that normally give rise to them. In the female, however, the first steps in the production of young can take place, but the partly-devel-oped embryo die and are absorbed. Yet so powerful is the newly-discovered dietary factor that, after such a failure has taken place, the feeding of a single natural food containing it will cause the production of healthy young at the next mating. Various natural

vere shown to contain the neces-i-v vitamin in widely differing concentration. It is present, though not in ■;:reat amount, in various kinds of animal tissue, especially muscle, fat, and certain of the vital organs, though it is low.in the heart, spleen, brain, kidney, and, strangely enough, in the male reproductive glands themselves. There is little of vitamin "E" in milk fat, ■ i j k] there is more of it in the milk of :>v.'s that have had access to fresh

alfalfa pasturage than in that of other cattle. Cod liver oil, though high in vitamins "A" and "D," is notably lacking in "E." "We have found it in oats, corn, and especially in wheat, where it is low in the endorperm, but concentrated in the embryo," said Dr Evans. "The richness of wheat germ in 'E' is extraordinary." By a complicated chemical process, involving not less than eleven steps of extraction, distillation, precipitation, etc., a highly purified extract of wheat germ was bbtained, which, apparently, contained as much vitamin "E" in a a drop as' existed in several ounces of ordinary foods. Fat soluble vitamin "E" was formerly known as factor X, but has now been promoted to a regular place in the alphabetical sequence.