SCIENCE NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 343, 19 March 1910, Page 9

SCIENCE NOTES.

AN AIR STERILISER. A curious method of stcrilinsg the air of rooms has been adopted by Professor diaries Eichet, of Paris. Glycerine in small drops is scattered along a cylinder containing a suction fan, and the air pumped in is thus charged with fine glycerine particles, which fall to the floor, carrying all dust and germs. ROUGH ON EATS. After four years of vain effort to produce an epidemic among rats, M. de Kruyff, of the Agricultural Bureau at Buitenzor, Java, hit upon a new plan. Pouring half a teaspoonful of carbon disulphide into each occupied rat hole, he lighted the vapor, and the poisonous gases from the explosion almost instantly killed all rats. In forty-three holes subsequently opened, 131 dead rats w : ere found, two holes containing ten rats .each. THE MONO-RAIL SYSTEM. •The success of the mono-rail system for carrying freight and passengers is largely a question of finding a satisfactory type of carriage, and experiments are now being made in connection therewith on short lengths of roads in India. The mono-rail system is believed to possess great value, because of its simplicity and cheapness of construction, for military purposes on mountain roads.

FOR SUBMARINE SAILORS.

A magnificent deed of naval heroism has just »been performed by Ensign Kenneth Whiting, of the United States navy. It will render those who have to go down to the bed of the ocean in submarine boats for ever grateful to him. One day, when the submarine to which he belonged was submerged in five fathoms of water, the problem presented itself to him of finding some means of escape in case the vessel were disabled and unable to get to the surface. Hemmed in 'by tons of pressure of the deep sea, the only thing that could escape i'rom the vessel was a torpedo, which, forced out from the torpedo tube by air pressure, could be sent on its self-pro-pelling destructive mission. Would it not be possible for members of the crew to escape by means of this tube in case of emergency He would try it. As the only means of getting through the tube ,<was to be shot out, and as this necessitated the co-operation of someone to operate the torpedo gun, Whiting took a gunner into his confidence, and unfolded his plan. The gunner was to operate tie mechanism while he (Whiting) crawled into the tube and became a human torpedo. He got the ship's gunner to work the mechanism, and was fired into the water, and eventually he came to the top of the water none tne worse for his adventure.

UNDER-WATER SIGNALS. An indication of the progress which is being made in attempting to rob the sea oE its dangers to shipping is afforded by two notices in a recent issue of the London. Gazette. Trinity House has supplemented the existing facilities for warning ships of peril in time of fog by installing a submarine signal station off the North Stake, near Holyhead. A bell, under the water, has been placed here. It will give five strokes in quick succession, followed by a silent interval of ten seconds. The sound, it has been ascertained, will travel from ten to twenty miles—tie water being a better conductor than air—and the steel hull of any ship within its radius will act as a sounding drum. By means of a microphone—such as many ships have fitted in their hulls —the sound of the bell will he concentrated and carried to the bridge, and in thick weather the navigating officer will thus be able to locate lis position when entering Holyhead. .Similar submarine signals have been placed at other points or the English and German coasts, and it is now announced that one has been installed on hoard the Wandelaar Bank light vessel outside the entrance to the river Schlede.

HOW PLANTS SEE. The power of plants to adjust themselves in whatever position may be most desirable with regard to the light is very curious, for the movements are as purposeful as if made under intelligent direction, and yet the plants cannot be credited with the possession of even an .apology for any sort of brain, although that is usually looked upon as a sine qua non for the seat of intelligence. The light-perceiving organs of plants are legion. They are cells in the epidermis (skin-like covering), which are lined on their inner wall with a thin layer of living matter that is especially sensitive to the rays of light that rail upon it. This sensitive layer underneath is enabled to take note of the direction from which the light comes by means ot certain peculiarities of structure in, the main part of the cell above it. These organs show modifications of two main types. One type, formed by smooth epidermis, has cells with a plain outer surface. This merely allows the light to pass through and fall on the sensitive layer beneath, but does not aid in bringing out differences in the intensity of illumination by concentrating the rays of light over definite areas.

i SUGAR AS A DISINFECTANT. Professor Trilbert, of the Pasteur Institute, has demonstrated that burning sugar develops formic acetylene-alde-'hyde, one of the most powerful antiseptic gases known . Five grams of sugar (77.16 grains) were burned under a glass bell holding ten quarts. After the vapor had cooled, bacilli of typhus, \ tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox, etc.', were placed in the bell in open glass tubes, I and in Jtfilf an hour all the microbes I were dead. If sugar is burned in a I closed vessel containing putritied meat or the contents of rotten eggs, the offensive odor disappears at once. The oldtime popular faith in the disinfecting qualities of burned sugar appears, therefore, well founded.

TRAP FOR MICROBES AND DUST. Professor Charles Richet, of Paris, has devised a method of filtering the air of rooms, removing from it all the dust and microbes that may fly in through the open windows. It consists of a spray of liquid falling upon an electric ventilating fan. The fan moves in a large cylinder, open above and below, and admitting about 7000 cubic feet per hour. Above the vetilator is placed a reservoir containing about three quarts of liquid, the flow of which is regulated to about a quart an hour. The liquid —glycerine, soap and water, or plain water—falls in drops upon the vanes of the fan, and is by their rapid movement sprayed upon the inner sides of the cylinder. This spray gathers to itself all the dust and microbes 'which enter through the window behind the venti'lator; it trickles down the sides of the cylinder, and is received in a receptacle at the bottom of this. The apparatus which Professor Richet exhibited to the Academy of Medicine captured in three hours one million microbes.