SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20112, 24 November 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

SCIENCE IN GAMES. In .1 scientific ago even sports, pastimes, and recreations tend to take on a scientific aspect, says a British writer. Tho national games arc becoming more highly scientific every year, in the sense that they demand inteiisivo training and the greatest possible pace and skill of which the individual is capable. Modern playing fields, with their flawless surfuces which stand the wear and tear of a strenuous season, nro due to scientific knowledgo of &oil culture, fertilisers, weed-killers, and worm-fillers, and so on. Tho equipment and clothing of sports lias ulso been vastly improved by science, and especially bv tho scientific development of rubber for shoes, bat handles, und balls for all games. Cheap (lanncls, shorts,' and other clothing liaye been provided by scientific methods, and oven the least aflluont player to-day can afford to appear on the field correctly dressed for tho game.

In still another, and perhaps most important. sense of all, scicico is influencing modern sport This is in the development of tho petrol engine, which has created an entirely new typo of sport dependent on speed and mechanical ingenuity. Such now sports as motor racing, motor-boat racing, and aeroplane racing aro but a beginning. Already thero is the brand new and very exciting sport of dirt-track racing. on motor-cycles, and no one can foresee wlial new sports may spring tip through the motor engine and electricity. In any case, tho tendency will be for games to develop moro and moro speed and mechanical skill, and to ho moro and more cosmopolitan. The difference between watching a cricket match on the village greon and following a big boxing match on the other side of the world by radio and television pretty well typifies the modern scientific development of sport.

MACHINES WITHOUT A MAN. One of America's latest marvels is an automatic electric-power station controlled three miles away, without a single human being within its walls. Visitors invited to witness the trial run were startled to see machines starting hero and stopping there as though some invisible man were moving about to control them. The new station is to supply electricity to 300,000 dwellers in New \*ork flats.

A LIGHTNING FREAK.

A white oak troo in the New York Botanical Gardens was electrocuted recently; it was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Almost immediately the leaves began to wither, and within a month the tree presented an autumnal appearance against tb& bright green of the rest of the grove. Continued observation convinced experts that the tree was dead and that it had apparently died instantaneously. After it was cut down a ring count proved that its ago was approximately two hundred years. MAN-MADE MACHINERY. Professor Hill, who it was stated at tho meeting of the British Association, was "at tho very gates of life and death " and " on the eve of a discovery of astounding importance," has made a machine which will go into a wristlet watch, which h brother scientist described as capablo of measuring the vara tion of one-millionth part of a degree in the tomperature of an infinitesimal section of the nerve of a frog.'.' To protect tho delicate instrument from outsido interference, the professor excavated fivo icet into tho fiooj of his cellar and thcro erected a three-ton concrcto pillar. After taking othci precautions, lie found that only on Sunday was tho world a quiet and still enough place for him to continuo his researches. RAINBOW-TINTED CROPS. For i lie past twenty-five years an American farmer has been producing fantastic varieties of corn, until his farm now presents :i rainbow appearance. Ho has discovered the secret of introducing colour effects in all parts of tho plant. Yellow cars come in shucks of royal purple, purple cars in bronze shucks, or bronzo ears in shucks of many colours. Kernels arc produced in purple, yellow, bronze, crimson, cherry red, and pink. Leaves and stalks show an equal variety of colour. Ilis experiments, however, have not been confined to colours. He has :n----introduced other varieties that have a definite economic value, such as a shortstalked corn tliAt resists the action of wind better than tho long-stalked kind. Varieties that resist disease havo also boon produced.