Science Siftings

New Zealand Tablet, 2 October 1913, Page 53

Science Siftings

By 'Volt.'

Maturing Cheese by Electricity.

An industrial electrician of Rotterdam is reported to have discovered a method of giving age to cheese by means of electricity. After a long series of experiments, he found that-he could take an absolutely fresh cheese and give it all the consistency, taste, and appearance of a fine cheese that had been stored away and carefully aged for two years. He takes a fresh cheese and subjects it to an alternating current, says Grocery. At the end of twenty-four hours of constant alternating electrical currents through this cheese it is said to possess all the properties of a fine two-year-old cheese. This has naturally aroused great interest in Holland, where cheese-making is one of the big industries. It is said the electrician claims he can do many other things with cheese by means of electricity, including an apparatus that will enable the manufacturer to so graduate and direct electrical action of this nature as to give cheese any taste desired and any consistency that may be needed to supply the wants of a fastidious market.

The Phenomenon of Sound.

A strange scientific discovery has been made by Professor de Quervain, the well-known Swiss explorer of Zurich, on the Jungfrau Mountain. The workmen used twenty-five tons of dynamite while constructing the highest section of the line, and there were explosions which were distinctly heard within a radius of thirty miles. Then within a zone of the next fourteen miles there was silence, but further up to a concentric circle of fifty miles the noise was again heard clearly. This intervening zone the Swiss scientist has named the ‘ zone of silence/ but he states that he is unable to account for the phenomenon. He asks whether the discovery does not in a way clear up the mystery of the Austrian General Duan, who in the Seven Years’ War deserted General Loudon when the latter was being attacked by the army of Frederick 11. at Leignitz, about forty miles away. General Duan stated afterwards that neither he nor his staff heard firing, while many miles behind his army the boom of cannon was heard.

Collecting Ostrich Feathers.

A very small proportion of our ostrich feathers comes from the wild birds nowadays. Twenty years ago there were but few ostrich farms, and the great majority of ostrich . feathers came, from] wild birds which were killed by the hunters in South Africa. Of course, after the ostriches were killed the feathers were pulled out, but now that the ostrich farms thrive and the birds are stripped of their plume feathers and turned loose to grow more greater care has to be taken. The white ostrich feathers are- not fully developed. There are also black and drab feathers on the same bird, but when the white feathers are fully developed they lose a great deal of their whiteness, and in the olden days had to be bleached. Now the ostriches are blindfolded with a hood on the farms and led into a sort of crate-like coop, where the black and drab feathers are carefully pulled out ; but the white feathers are never pulled out, as this would so damage the great sockets in which the large quills grow that no more would be forthcoming, so the quills of the white feathers are carefully cut off and the quills allowed to remain for several months, when they come out naturally and the new feathers start. Fifty years ago there only eighty*two tame ostriches known in all South Africa. And in that year only sixteen pounds of feathers were exported, and they came for the most part from wild birds, brought down by the hunters. Last year .there were about 800,000 domesticated ostriches in South Africa, and nearly 900,000 pounds of feathers were exported at a value of more than a quarter of a million sterling.