SCIENCE NOTES.

Otago Witness, 1 June 1910, Page 76

SCIENCE NOTES.

—Tea and Racial Degeneration.— Id an Irish Blue Book just issued the Inspector of Schools on the wide Galway circuit, commenting on the need of good cookery instruction, declares that the use of tea by the Irish peasantry 'is now carried to such dangerous excess that it mnks before alcohol as an enemy of the public health." In every peasant home the teapot is constantly stewing on. the fire, and the people, old and' young, resort to it at dijweticn. The poorer the people the greater tea-drinkers they are. 1 he Irish inspector laments that tea, which is no food, is allowed to take the place of proper food, and that in this way it is a potent cause of racial degeneration. - —Safeguard Against Burning.— A solution of alum is one of the jnost reliable preventives of fire, and chdaren s c'>fching should be saturated in it where toere is any. fear of them getting too close to the open fire. Get from the chemist about lib of alum, and this will last you a long while, as only a small quantity is used at one.time. Dissolve 2oz in. a little, warm water, and then stir it inito-one gallon of odd water. Rinse the clothing in, this and dry thoroughly.. If a pinafore so saturated happens to be too close to fire or gas, at the worst it can only smoulder; it will not<flare up. —Artificially Heating Orchards.— One of the greatest feats of artificial outdoor heating ever attempted was resorted to by sow* fruitgrowers in Colorado to save a -crop of fruit estimated at £600,000 in value. Thousands upon thousands of smudge pots were scattered through the orchards over 27 miles of territory, and the raising of temnerature that resulted effectually dispelled the unexpected frost. The- smudge pots used were of many different types, some burning oil and others coal. The temperature in the orchards was actually raised eight and nine degrees over the entire 27 miles of territory, as many as 300,000 smudge pots being used. —The Elixir of Life.— . The discovery of the elixir of long »ife •was announced"by the famous surgeon, Dr Doyen, in a lecture delivered in Paris recently. The inventor calls his elixir "mycblysine," because, it dissolves germs. He pointed out that if it were possible to increase tenfold the activity of the phagocytes the resistance of the human body ■would be considerably augmented, and the majority of infectious diseases would disappear. That problem Dr. Doyen declared he had solved by the discovery of phagogenous colloides. which are the basis of mycolysine. If employed rationally, he said, "mycolysine would do away with the majority of infectious diseases, notably those of the respiratory organs, digestive tubes, and the skin. The discovery, the lecturer aded, meant considerable prolongation of life. Taken in conjunction with the new treatment of tuberouloriis and' cancer by *»'s own phagogenous method, and the healing of external cancers by elec-tro-coagulation, it almost realised the hopes of the ancient alchemists. —Scientist and Child Crime.— Professor Eurico Ferri, Lombroso's most illustrious disciple in criminal anthropology, delivered a lecture in Milan on the cause of the alarming growth of child crime in Italy. Disc \ \,g modern industrialism as one of the -main factors in this phenomenon, Professor Ferri expressed the conviction that the principal evils resulting in the break-up of family life, the degeneracy of the male physiqre, and the engulfment of women and children in the vortex of white slavery were nearly all traceable to the use of steam as the main motor power. This appalling state of things, he paid, was destined to disappear with the incoming reign of electricity, which would become universal from the dav when, as science foresaw, we should be able to convert the heat of the sun bv direct means into electrical energy. Alread*- in Belgium and certain part's of North America sewingmachine work in factories has been abolished, so vhat women were now restricted to shorter hours of labour in their own homes at machines run by electricity. Within a few years progressive Governments in o-rea.t industrial countries would be engaged not only to shorten the ordinary time-table of working people, but, what, is 'still wop.2 imperative from a criminological point of view, in abolishing forcibly all. night work. —Wonders of Aluminium. — The price of aluminium to-dry—about sixpence a pound—seems cheap when one considers that 20 years a?o it was sold at 60s a pound; hut, on the other hand, it seems dear when one realises that aljont 8 per cent, of the earth's crust is aluminium. Every cubic yard of ordinary clay contains something like 801 b of this, the most abundant of me talis. No wonder, then, that every' mefcalhirsiist has dreamed of extracting aluminium from clay. It is, indeed, a wonderful possibility: wwj philosoohcr's stone of the alchemists was nothing to it. Thus one* is abh> to realise the importance of - the dssoovwy actually made few months by a French chemist, who baa succeeded m Vrod'.tcitijf the m»-V from clay, ihough as

yefc not cheaply enough to render the process profitable. The discovery of a means whereby aluminium can be obtained cheaply from ordinary clay will revolutionise to a considerable extent the affairs of the world. It will mark the beginning of the aluminium age. Aluminium, in large measure, will take the place of wood. With suitable magnesium and other alloys to adapt the metal to various purposes we. shall have aluminium ships, aluminium bridges, aluminium furniture, and even, aluminium houses. —Have Fishes Memory?— Studies as to the mental powers of animals- have already been made on several occasions, but only recently have inquiries been made as to whether fishes have a memory or not. Results have shown traces of a memory both in coral zoophytes and other denizens of the deep. Experiments have been made with several fishes, but the most striking results have been obtained with the grey perch, which lives chiefly on a small silvery-hued sardine. Some of these were taken and coloured red, and were then iput into the tank where the perch was with several other silver-coloured sardines. Of course, the normal ones were at once attacked and eaten, but it was not till hungry that the perch made a tentative meal of one of the red-coloured victims; on recognising the sardine flavour, however, ne promptly demolished the remainder. Subsequently the specimens in the tank devoured the sardines, irrespective of colour, thus showing not only traces of a memory but also the power to differentiate colour. Subsequently, sardines coloured red and blue were placed in-the tank together with the silver ones. The same scene was repeated, the blue ones not being attacked till the others were eaten, and hunger compelled' investigation of the newcomers. After this "introduction" the perch ate the sardines of all three types without any difficulty Some spines of the 6ea nettle (actinia) were then fastened to the blue sardines; these were at once avoided by the perch, who proirptly got out of the way of the newcomers. This showed traces of memory, as the results of contact with the sea nettle were clearly shown and recognised. —The Luminosity of the Sun.—■ Stupendous figures representing the Luminosity of the sun are given by Professor Nordmann, of the Paris Observatory. The solar heat is placed by him at 64-82 degrees centigrade. The sun's total candle-power he expresses in an unthinkable number which begins with 18 followed by 27 noughts. This is equivalent to 1,991,000 for every square inch of the sun's surface. Some idea of the amount of light these figures represent may be gained from the fact that the most powerful' electric arc light known at the present time has an illuminating power of barely 20,000 candiles. As «n illustration Professor Nordmann says that for every bit of the sun's surface the size of a finger nail a quantity of light issues that -*ould illuminate the entire Avenue de l'Opera a whole night. As the sun's surface measures 200,000,000 sauaire miles- its totai lumincsitv may be put at 51,000.000,000,000 times that of the Avenue de l'Opera. . Professor Nordmann has also worked at measuring the light and heat of various stars, some of which are even moi-e powerful illuminants than the. sun. Sirius, for instance, he finds is about- 30 times hotter than the sun—correctly 190..'1P0 degrees centigrade, wbil© the Polar Star is a comparatively cold body of merely 8200 degrees. —A Subsurface Semi-Submarine.— T.he United States naval authorities are at (present experimenting with a new type of war- vessel. It is known as the subsurface torpedo boat, and is designed to be immune to the small gun fire which is relied upon as a protection against ordinary torpedo boats. It consists of a submarine hull, which contains all the machinery and torpedo armament, suspended from an un'Tkable surface hull divided' into compartments packed with cellulose. Six tons is t.he weight of the vessel, and' its length is 46ft. The price which the American GoverKMhHii has agreed to pay is £4-500. '.he small sub-surface boats can be used for coast defence or they can be carried on bofisrd of the larger vessels in an armoured fleet. In time of action they can bs launched arid directed, by day or night, against the enemy's fleet, particularly for operation against ships lyinig under the protection of land' fortifications or mine fields —where expensive battleships should not be risked —such as those which occurred at Manila, Santiago, and Port Arthur. In the submarine hull of the new style boat is an eight cylinder gasolene engine, of 150 horse-nower. The explosive charge carried for use on hostile vessels is 10001 b of gnncotton. A heavily armoured conning tower on thp surface hull, communicating with the submarine hull, enables the navigator to direct and-control the boat's movements. It is estimated that a fleet of 50 of these sub-surface torpedo boats would cost about as much as two or three destroyers or submarines. As their cruising radius is 200 iniles, their principal function will probably be for the defence of ports nnd unjfuardied' coastline The suiwurfuoo boat !.- to be operated in one of two way*. Either it may bo steered vifchin short torpedo. range and aimed at its objective, the crew leaving it in lifeboats or buoys, cr it muv - bo fitted with

a submerged bow torpedo tube to discharge the ordinary 18in torpedo. The inventor of the now war vessel is Clarence L. Burger, who received the degro,' of civil engineer from Princeton in 1885.