Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, 19 June 1913, Page 49

Science Sittings

By ‘ Volt.’

An Adjunct to Scientific Research.

One of the most interesting developments in cinematography as an adjunct to scientific research and demonstration was illustrated recently by Professor William Stirling, of Manchester University, in the course of a lecture on ' Motion and Locomotion.' 'There is a development in the cinema known as ultra-cine-matography,' said the lecturer, ' where, instead of amplifying the movement, it is slowed down, and thus, for instance, we can study the various positions successively assumed by the joints in the body of a man walking, running, or jumping.' A number of wonderful illustrations were given. One film showed a man raising one foot and then the other in slow rhythmic movements. ' That is the cinematograph of a man doing four miles an hour,' declared the professor. Movements magnified three hundred times by the cinematograph showed the growth of the embryonic tissue of a chick's heart. The action of the respiratory organs on the heart of a dog normally and during asphyxia was also illustrated, and one beautiful film showed the slow unfolding of a flower bud.

Life in the Ocean Depths. Sir John Murray lectured recently at the Royal Institution on ' Life in the Great Oceans.' ' He described the methods adopted to insure that the catches in the trawl were representative of the different depths examined and showed how marine plants and animals were adapted to their special environment. Referring to the presence of bacteria, he showed that life could not exist in the sea unless the bacteria did their work on the floors of the ocean. In the warmer waters the processes of life were hastened, so that while in the Arctic and Antarctic many .individuals were found but few species, in the Tropics many species were found but few individuals. In the Saragossa Sea the fishes showed color adaptation, and it was there that the youngest of the larvae of the eel were found. A common method of protective coloration was for the backs of fish to be black and the sides silvered, this making them almost invisable at a considerable depth. .When the limit of light was reached at about five hundred metres the fish were red colored, but as they reached the lower depths the colors became more sombre. . There were various modifications in fishes to facilitate floating in the warmer and less viscous waters and some fish which had developed air bladders had a tendency to fall upwards from the lowest, depths. At the bottom of the sea the vast majority of animals were mud-eaters, and in fact all stratified rocks had passed through the intestines of animals.

The Safety of Trains. The West and South Clare Light Railway, in western Ireland, has occasionally had its trains derailed by high winds from the Atlantic Ocean. In order to obtain timely notice of the occurrence of such wind 1 " the company has borrowed from the British Meteorological Office a pressure tube anemometer, which is installed at Quilty station in charge of the stationmaster. This anemometer is fitted with an electrical attachment, devised in the Meteorological Office, which gives a signal when the wind reaches a certain strength. The first signal is given for a wind velocity of 65 miles an hour; under such conditions ballast is placed on the trains to increase their stability. If the wind rises to 85 miles an hour a second signal is given, and traffic is then suspended.

Within recent years starlings have increased so much in numbers in Scotland that almost everywhere they place a heavy tax on the local food supply So rare were they in the first half of the 'last century that Sir Walter Scott is said to have travelled twenty miles to see a nest of starlings; and the late Duke of Argyle left it on record that he never saw any of these birds until he went to England in 1836.