SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19962, 2 June 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

MAKING MEN TRANSPARENT. A Russian savant, Dr. Vassilief, announces, after many years of experiments, that ho has succeeded in making the inanimate bodies of men and animals transparent, and invisible, and that he hopes to achieve the same success shortly with living bodies. "I do not see much practical interest in making living human bodies invisible," explained Dr. Vassilief, who went to Paris to carry on his work after the Russian revolution, " but it will be of tremendous therapeutical importance if I can make them transparent, as it will them be possible to study and treat all kinds of organic and functional diseases with perfect knowledge and assurance. If the bones and organs themselves become absolutely invisible they can be slightly coloured. The practice of surgery and medicine will become far more efficacious and vivisection will be unnecessary." Dr. Vassilief''s process consists of treating the body with various acids and reagents, and he has a large number of specimens in his laboratory to prove the success of his methods. ELECTRIC SHOCKS FOR FLIES. The day of the fiy-swptter is past. A patent has been taken out for a devico for killing flies by electricity. It consists of two bare-wire solenoids. Flies and other annoying insects are attracted by an electric lamp inside the case, beneath which is a trap baited with something that appeals to their appetites. They are then either electrocuted by coming into contact with the solenoid wire, or stunned so that they fall into the trap, from which they cannot escape

THE EARTH'S 3IG BULGE, As the earth's crust is by no means rigid, it rises and falls under the gravitational attraction of the moon and sun m a manner similar to that of the ocean's tide. Various difficulties have so ffir prevented exact measurements. The pressure exerted 011 spots of the earth's crust by the rising tide of the ocean is another thing that makes it heave and fall, Atlantic tides have caused an observed earth bulge eight hundred miles away, and it is thought probable that this influence girdles the world,

TRACING CRIMINALS BY EARS. Although the finger-print system of identifying criminals is almost infallible, thero is always one uncertainty in its uso—Llic ability of a criminal to leave a false set of prints made with rubber stamps. Because of this, says an Eng. \ish paper, there is a possibility that l>eiore long the finger-print system may be replaced in official favour by the shape of the ear. Paris police are reported to be working out systems of classification and description. No two human ears of exactly the same shape have ever been discovered, and their shape cannot be altered surgically without leaving tell-tale UKui'S. Whereas finger-prints cannot, he taken except by foi\a or by the individual's consent, cars can be studied and even photographed without the knowledge of the possessor. Ear photographs may soon be filed systematically, and referred to at need, in *a similar manner (o fingerprints. REMARKABLE FOSSIL FOREST. A fossil forest in which trees grew to enormous heights, and where, in tho reptilian age, lizards 180 ft. in length crawled about in search of food, has been discovered in Harney County (Oregon, United States,) by Dr. F, B. Daudee, a noted geologist. He says that ho found great quantities of the scale? of reptiles in tho neighbourhood of Warm Springs, and that the United States Geological Survey reported as rhyolito rocks, what was really a fossil forest of giant sequoias and conifers. Reconstruction of tho lizard shows, says Dr. Daudee, that it v/as an astonishing monster, living in swamps. A single bone weighed hundreds of pounds. Some of tho fossil trees were 3500 ft. in height, and he had evidence tci show that one at least lu;d a circumference "f 575 ft. Bark had been discovered twelve feet thick. Until his discovery, lie fidds no fossils of the great lizarols «f the peptilian ago had been discovered in the north-west of the United States.