SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20496, 22 February 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

THE AGE OF THE WORLD.

Valuable natural scientific and economic findings are expected from research in tho laboratory of Dr. 11. Richard Seiwell, curator of oceanography and invertebrates, Buffalo Museum of Science, lie is engaged in examining and classifying age-old silt from the ocean bottom collected while he was on the yacht Carnegie, sent out by the Carnegie Research Institution of Washington cn a magnetic survey of tho world. " In the greatest depth of the ocean fragments of other worlds are found," Dr. Seiwell said recently. " Outside tho earth's atmosphere, planets and meteors are continually clashing, and as they clash particles are broken loose. A great many of these particles settle on the earth, but their identity is obscured in dust. In the deep parts of the ocean, where there ia nothing else to interfere, they may be collected in quantities sufficient to be studied."

These extra-terrestrial particles and the skeletons of tho microscopic animals which form the other constituent of the ocean bottom are being examined and classified, for tho first time, by Dr. Seiwell.-

" Scientific interest lies in measuring the thickness of these deposits in order to make computations ot the ago of the earth," Dr. Seiwell continued. " A commercial aspect is that which concerns telegraph companies. They wish to learn how fast the matter accumulates, in order that they may avoid laying cables in regions where the accumulations will cover them in time."

ELECTBIC LILIES. Lilies, tulips, and hyacinths have been grown cn tho north-east coast of Sweden in midwinter by heating the earth with electric radiators. Warming the earth by electricity seems to do more good than dosing plants with electric light. It is thought, in fact, that this new method of heating the soil by electricity- will make it possible to grow in any part of the world plants which hitherto have only been grown in particular climates.

WAS AGAINST FT7NGI.

Fungi are the measles and chicken-pox of wheat and other crops. So many millions of pounds are lost to the British Empire every year by parasites other than insects that the Imperial Bureau of .Mycology is to have a new laboratory at Kew costing £12.000. It will act as the central Intelligence Department in the fight against crops diseases; all the latest scientific information will be collected here from every part of the world. For this purpose there is a staff of translators who can speak and read almost every known language. Fungi in crops can do as much harm as insects, and losses from this cause last year were ten per cent. of. the total value of British Empire products.

HEARTS THAT BEAT BACKWARDS

The butterfly, symbol of inconstancy, has a heart that often beats backwards. Professor John 11. Gerould has demonstrated this strange behaviour many times. The heart of an insect is in its back instead of its chest, and consists merely of an enlargement in a long blood-vessel. A beat" will start at its rear end and travel forward, squeezing the blood on ahead of it. After repeating this several times, the heart will pause, and then a beat will start at the forward end, sending the blood in the opposite direction. Occasionally the beat will start in the middle, sending the blood both ways.

HOUSE BUILT FOR BEETLES. Death-watch beetles aro to be encouraged to do all the damage they can in a house that is to be built " somewhere in Buckinghamshire." These beetles, whose kin devoured the old oak in Westminster Hall, are to bo the sole occupants, while scientists trnm several research institutes and Government centres will look on and increase their knowledge of the pests that cause such damage to Britain's buildings.