SCIENCE NOTES & NEWS.

Waipa Post, Volume VII, Issue 330, 14 July 1914, Page 7

SCIENCE NOTES & NEWS.

PRIZE FOR DOCTORS

The largest of the standing- rewards offered for medical research is the Brcant prize of four thousands pounds offered by the medical section of the French Academy of Sciences for the discovery of a means to cure Asiatic cholera. The entire sum will be given to the discoverer of a genuine cure, but the interest may be awarded from time to time in smaller prizes for work advancing tho scientific knowledge of this disease. PRESERVING DOCUMENTS IN CONCRETE. A Berlin storage vault, designed especially for tracings of drawings, consists of earthenware pipes of a few inches in diameter imbedded in a mass of concrete. The tubes anfe closed with covers of stamped steel, and these have space for numbers oi other marks for indexing the contents. To avoid accumulation of water from the extinction of a fire or any other "cause, the tubes arc slightly inclined towards the opening. This vault was put in use about, four years ago, and tracings that have been stored in it over since have been not only kept in safety but have been preserved in a perfect condition.

A NEW ROAD MATERIAL. With a view to obtaining a road surface which will s|ve a better resistance to motor traffic, experiments arc being made in France with a roadbed material consisting of an intimate mixture of "iron straw" or iron in the shape of a wiry or fibrous mass, together with cement mortar and sand. Such material is called "fcrrocement," and it appears that tests as to its fitness .-for road surface arc giving good results. But the iron is not the usual kind found in commerce, but' is prepared specially far the purpose. It is claimed that the resulting material win not be an expensive one.

THE MAKING OF MAGNETS

The most powerful and permanent magnets arc made from steels containing about six per cent, of tungsten and O.C per cent, of carbon. The magnet bars are to be long and rmrrow, and after forging at the lowest possible temperature should be heated to nine hundred degrees C, kept at seven hundred and fifty degrees for a time, then cooled off; and for hardening are to be reheated, cooled gradually to seven hundred degrees, and plunged into brine at twenty degrees. Maturing is effected by boiling ten or twelve hours. The bars are magnetised by means of electromagnets, and when the magiv/'i'mi is to remain extremely constant it is reduced five or ten per cent, by expo sure to demagnetising forces

ANIMALS' FOR F.-KNOWLEDGE OF EARTHQUAKES.

One of the mysteries still unsolved is that of the sense by which the lower animals become aware of'the approach of earthquakes. For three or four days before the scveife earthquake at Guadalajara, Mexico, the many parrots of the city showed great and unusual restlessness, and during the period of disturbar.ee the increased cries of the birds gave warning of the nearness of the worst shocks. Rats also became alarmed, fleeing from the city before Hie earthquakes came. Super-sensitiveness to faint shocks scarcely gives satisfactory explanation for modern seismographs arc very sensitive, and it is quite unlikely that tremors too slight to be recorded would be felt so strongly as to give alarm.

OFFICE PHONOGRAPH. An invention that threatens to do away with stenographers is causing consternation anrmg Parisian shorthand and type-writing experts. This new correspondence device consists of phonographic records on prepared cloth, which n\ay be posted instead of a letter. The communication is simply dictated into a machine, the result is posted and the recipient inserts the cloth record in his phonograph and listens. The invention was originally designed for use as an exact record of testimony in legal cases; but with further developrrrnt the discovery can now be used for all correspondence, and, as the records can be put on the market very cheaply, the process is less expensive than the employment of stenographers.

THE STEN»TYPE. A new short hard machine, called the stcnotype, has made its appearance at a competition in I\ T cw York. It takes clown "M words a minute, and weighs 8 lbs. The working of it is based on phonetic spelling. Several letters can be printed by striking one key, while it is possible to strike' two keys with one friger. The 23 keys represent seven consonants and every combination of sounds used in speech, together wit* ah -"t I'lO siandard abbreviations—the sole ce'de that the operator must master. Wirh the machine a speed of over 180 words a minu!:: lias been obtained. The machine is not being sold to the general public, the sale being restricted to students of business schools qualified as competent operators in order to keep I lie device from becoming a drug on the market