SCIENCE NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 December 1924, Page 1

SCIENCE NOTES.

(From Science Service, Washington.) COTTON AND CHEMISTRY. Cotton is gaining upon its rivals bv aid of the chemist. Silk, the aristocrat of textiles, gets the gloss that i.s the envy of the rival fibres from being forced out in a viscous form front the tiny offices of the spinnerets of the silkuorn solidifying as a single slick, smooth cylinder a thousand yards long. Cotton, on the contrary, if you compare it under a microscope, looks like a short twisted tape, and wool like a rough and scaly rope. Cotton, to quote an old joke, shrinks from soaping. like a small boy. Dipping cotton into .strong alkali causes the fibres to .shorten and thicken and soften. Seven-ty-live years ago it occurred to an F.iig-li-di chemist. Joint Mercer, to try what would happen if the cotton wore not allow to shrink. So lie kept the thread or cloth on stretchers while it was dipped into a solution of caustic soda and left to dry tinder tension. The lye took the kinks out of the cotton and softened its surface, and this gave it .something of the lustre of silk. So Mercer immortalised himself, like .f. Id. MaoAdnm. the toad-maker, and we have had “mercerised” cotton ever since. X'ow a new method of treating cotton lias been invented. This is the opposite of the men erisation process for it is produced by acid instead of alkali. Charles .Schwartz, of the Rhilnna Company. at Basle. Switzerland, has found that cotton may he made to resemble its other rival, wool by immersing it in concentrated nitric acid. The fillies become more cutley and their surface rougher, and the fabric assumes the text tin- of a new material to sight and touch. The tensile strength is said to he increased h.v oO per cent., and the resistance of the surface against scraping to he improved hy ”00 per cent. In wear and warmth and appearance the philanised cloth resembles woollen. The chemist has made a new market for cut ton wasle liv dissolving it completely in nitric acid, alkaline sulphide or acetic acid, and spinning out the visions fluid into threads of any length, size or slntpe that he pleases, producing thereby a synthetic little that eloseIv resembles silk in appearance if not in strength. Fifty per cent, of what seems to he silk nowadays conics from the chemical laboratory instead of from the cocoon. A TWENTY-EIGHT day month. A now arrangement, of the calendar, embodying the ideas of Rrof. Charles F. Marvin, chief of the F.S. Weather Bureau, was presented before the meeting of Hit- International Geodetic and Ronphysieal Union at Madrid in October. I'rof. Marvin has long believed the present division of the year into twelve mouths of unequal length is awkward, and should he changed. Tie likens the present calendar, in which the length of the mouths vaiies front twenty-eight to thirty one days. to a confusing yardstick which would sometimes measure thirty-six inches and sometimes t hirf y-ciehl or thirty-nine, lie believes that much convenience would lie gained hv both business and science if mouths were always of equal length and alwavs began on the same day, and In- has devised a calendar on that basis, which was presented In-lore llto meeting here. I'rof. Marvin’s calendar is very simple. The year is divided into thirteen months instead of twelve, and each itm; ll < 1 1 h.i . ox.ntly I went y eight days. All months would have the sati-c days on the same dates, Inrevci'. 'lbis thir-teen-month year would have one day. the .'ldolli. left over. I’rof. Marvin proposes 111 stick this odd day in somewhere bet ween Christmas and New Year's, as an additional holiday. In leap years another day would he inserted between two midsummer months as a midsummer holiday. A number of advantages to business in the proposed arrangement tire pointed out. The beginning of each month, and the beginning of the year, would always lie the beginning of a week -a considerable matter in the ordering ol office routine. Hut one inescapable source of error intrudes. If is I,nonow that each year is shorter than F one preceding l-y a very small particle of tune. The difference _amount s to fifty-three one-hundreds of a second in a cent urv. I’rof. Marvin siales that by the time this unavoidable error introduces a difference ol one day ill his method of reckoning, it will he the year BI.HIH) A.D. RUBI’.HR ( OAT HD FRUITS.

Dipping in ruhhor l:it«-x (already a f:i Itli lin r prorfSs in tiro manulaoturo). promises lo liocnmo :iu important process in tin 1 fruit trade, accordino to ;i inpnrt lo Iho I’an-l’acilio l T nioti ill I Iniinliilu. livIiv Dr I’. -I. S. ('minor, ;i Dnli|i hotanist, of Jnvii. Dr f'minor lias shipped fresh strawberries Juitli rulilior cinits wit limit loss id flavour nr toxtnro, tlioiioh tlm trip lasi oil lour* tooi) days. 110 lias shipped latox-dip-poil I'ipo mangos, and the manoosleeli, uliicli is oiinsiilorod tin- must dolioato and liaid to ship id all tropical Imits, 111.11 l linilcnzorc tn Paris, whom they arrivi'il in portoot cnnditinn. Iho siioI'oss id tho proooss dojionds on tho I'm mat ion of a thin, airtight film over iho siirfaoo of tho fruit. Tho oxohisioii of oxygon slops tho physiological procossos. and no chances take piano until tho rithhor hint is stiipod oil' again. During his oxperimonts Dr Cramer dipped ono olid ol a croon hniinlia in latox and lolt tho other ond as it was. Tho nnnoatod part wont on and ripened, while tho ooatod olid remained exact Iv :is croon as it was at tho start. Similarly, ripe fruits when dipped simply remain ripe and do not go oil to overriponess and deterioration. Dr ('miner's process may hooonie tho hosts of very important developments in tho handling of tropical produce. P.ofligciiitinii in the tropics is expensive, and some of the choicest fruits, like the mangostceii, cannot he shipped even when refrigerated. Huhher latex on the other hand, is inexpensive and nhundnnt throughout all the hot countries, and its use is expected to have the advantage of economy, hotli in cost ami in the utilisation, as shipping space, of parts of cars and vessels now occupied hy ice diamhers and refrigerating machinery.