SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20538, 12 April 1930, Page 5 (Supplement)

SCIENCE OF THE DAY.

SOME AMAZING FACTS,.

Dr. Donald Campbell Macfie, in his recently delivered Thomson lectures, mado many interesting statements. Ho said:—

" All tho teeming life of our globe —all its forests and meadows and gardens, all its myriads of fishes, birds and beasts —is in material bulk so small that it might all be buried in tho Pacific Ocean without appreciably raising tho sea level; while if it were all mado into a ball and flung into tho crater of a sunspot it would he licked up like a speck of dust in a roaring furnaco. " I, who stand before you now, clothed in flesh and cloth —I, who look fairly solid—am roally a hollow ghost, for though according to physics I consist of quadand quadrillions and quadrillions of invisible, infinitesimal particles, yet they aro so small in themselves that I am actually emptier than a vacuum tubo. If some terrific grasp wore to squeeze tho particles together as they have been squeezed togetl , in some dead suns, they would not till a split pea. " How much do you think tho halfpea full of materiality would weigh ? It would weigh about 1601b., and if you managed to lift it in your hands you could not throw it more than a few inches, and if you let it fall it would go through tho floor. "If a man's body were analysed quantitatively there would be found in a man of medium size at least enough hydrogen to fill a 10-gallon barrel, enough oxygon nearly to fill 900 Q-gallon barrels, enough carbon to mako 10,000 lead pencils, enough phosphorus to mako 9000 boxes of matches, enough hydrogen to fill a' balloon capablo of lifting a man to tho top of Ben Mac Dhu, enough iron to make five carpet tacks, enough salt to fill six ordinary salt cellars, and four or five pounds of nitrogen. Chemically, man is mostly gas and water."-TOPSY-TURVY SENSES. While listening to a church service broadcast from tho Cathedral of Notro Dame, a Parisian wireless listener also smelled tho smoko of the candles in tho church. Mystified, ho set radio engineers tho difficult problem of discovering whether smell sensations might bo picked

up accidentally by tlio microphone. It has, howover, boca decided by French psychologists that ho is tho victim of a curious mental abnormality called " Synesthesia," or tho mixing of tho sensations. Certain peoplo, it seems, can rccoivo a brain-messago corresponding to ono sense when another sonso is stimuluated. Tasto sensations aro not infrequently produced at tho sight of food—honco tho expression, " making one's mouth water." It is well known that a cornet player may bo put right off his stroko by the sight of a person sucking a lemon. " Colour-hearing" is another form of this abnormality. Many people soo colour and colour-combinations when they hear tho sound of motor-car horns, whilo others can discern colours in tho rattling of knivo3 and forks in a restaurant kitchon. There is ono woman, it is said, to whom milk tastes yellow, swoets taste bluo, and all unpleasant tastes are brown.

NO MORE RAILWAY DISASTERS.

Train smashes and level-crossing disasters will, it is claimed, become impossible if wireless devices recently tested in Spain are adopted. In tlio driver's cabin is a wireless transmitting and receiving set which is automatically set in operation when tho train starts. Signals are sent out along tho rails in both directions and are picked up by the set of an approaching train. Alarm mechanisms are connected to tho wireless sots and can bo adjusted so that they go off with a loud report when trains como within a given distance of each other. In tho case of level-cross-ings, a red light in combination with a powerful siren is suspended over the crossing, wired to a wireless , mechanism. When a train comes within a certain distance a rod light is flashed and tho siren blows automatically.