SCIENCE NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 May 1924, Page 1

SCIENCE NOTES.

The Governor-General of Freucl West Africa lias issued an older preventing the capture, detention. am sale or exportation of living ciiim

paiizccs throughout the territory controlled by I’ranee. according lo the Paris representative of the American -Medical Association. Special permits to capture and export chimpanzees for scientific purposes may he secured by scientists and medical investigators. The permits are made out to individuals, and tire uon-lransferahlo. They are limited as to time, and the number of chimpanzees that may he captured is definitely stated. Furthermore, animals may lie captured only with nets or traps, and not wounded. The new regulation is considered an important Government recognition of the great necessity of animals for

scientific experimentation. s Tiie German scientists. Prof. Kleine and Dr Fischer, have been sen; to Africa hv the Government of tho Belgian Congo to study the curative effect of the new drug, “Bayer “0.j,” upon animals Mill, .ring I'nmi African sleeping sickness. The ell'eet of it

upon animals is not. known, hut many cures •have been reported among the 170 human patients treated in Rhodesia and the Congo. Although it lx -difficult to keep the native patients under continuous supervision, only a lew died, and in most cases the blood was ioiind to have been freed from the deadly parasites. The disease, which is entirely different from the so-called “sleeping sickness" prevalent in Europe and America, is due lo the bite of an insect, the tsctse-flv.

Los* of the expensive helium . gas which is used in the inflation of the navy dirigible Shenandoah, and for similar purposes, lias been caused no! only by its leakage mil. hut by the leakage of air in. This makes the gas heavier and les- buoyant. A remedy has been found by the U.S. Bureau of Mines, which is now construofing a repiirilication laboratory at l.akchurst. X.J.. the Shenandoah's home port, ft Inis h"en found that charcoal, when in what is known as Ihe "active” condition. in which il absorbs certain gases, and when cooled to about the temperature of liquid air. lias an even greater attraction for all gases except helium and hydrogen. If the impure helium is passed over such chilled charcoal, the oxygen and nitrogen of tin l air are caught and held by the charcoal, while helium in a very pure state mav he recovered.