Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 19 February 1914, Page 55

Science Siftings

o ' Bi * Volt.’ ■A - <r~' : Luminous Insecticide. - , It is a well-known fact that insect vermin are attracted by light. A Canadian inventor has patented an insecticide in which that principle is practically applied. He has invented a luminous sticky compound or paint which v does the work of the ordinary sticky flypaper in daytime, absorbs the* rays of light at the same time, and becomes luminous at night to finish its work of extermination. Petrol and Aeroplanes. One of the great evils of the present high price of petrol, an airman explains, is the enormous cost of flying. It is estimated that the fuel and oil costs of an aeroplane of high power run into about £1 per hour of flight, and when it is realised that whereas two years ago England officially owned one aeroplane, it had fifiecn last year and now has from 120 to 150; and that with this increase have also come improvements which will give about 250 hours’ flying for each machine annually, the significance of high fuel costs will begin to be appreciated. It will be measured by a fuel and oil bill of about £30,000 a year at retail prices. Gasoline Locomotive. At the Schneider mines in France there are being made trails of a new light locomotive with a 70 horsepower internal combustion engine. A novel feature is the use of napthaline as fuel, employing a special carburetter. It is claimed that the present locomotive is the best solution of the problem of a .--mall -.locomotive for use with trains on a narrow-gauge railroad. The trails made near Havre showed excellent results as ; o general working as well as fuel consumption. Advantages over steam locomotives are rapid starting, no boiler upkeep, suppression of water supply along the road, ease of driving, and absence of danger, reduction of dead weight to the least amount, small bulk of fuel on board, and absence of smoke and cinders. Tho Electric Furnace. The electric furnace, through the generation of a heat so intense as to simulate some of the primal forces of nature, has produced for the first time many absolutely or commercially new products. It artificial diamonds and other gems : it is the only means for commercially producing carborundum (the hardest of all manufactured substances), calcium carbide (the source of a valuable illuminant and a nitrogenous fertiliser), and. artificial graphite, which is finding extended use in the arts ; and it has converted aluminium from a merely precious to a very useful metal, and reduced its price from more than £2 a pound to less than two shillings. It is responsible for all methods of fixing -nitrogen, which, in view of the approaching exhaustion of the natural supply of Chili nitrate, obviates a possible " nitrogen famine, and alone makes this agency of inestimable service to mankind. The electric furnace is radically transforming the steel industry. It produces steel or crucible quality with almost open hearth economy, and for the first time since 1740 the expensive and intricate crucible process finds a competitor. In providing ' rails and heavy-service steel of crucible characteristics in texture and toughness at slight increase of cost over, the comparatively impure and unreliable older products a revolution of astounding proportions is going on before our very eyes. ' ' .