Science Sittings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 49, 9 December 1925, Page 62

Science Sittings

(By Volt)

Trying to Harness the Sun. The sources on which we rely for heat and energy—coal, oil, and gas—are being swiftly use! up. They cannot be replaced. Natural gas is almost exhausted, and petrol production is probably at its height. Science is turning to the sun for a solution of its power and heat problems. Nature’s source of heat and energy is the sun. It is said that the power of the sunshine falling upon a square mile of land at sea-level in one year is equal to 700,000 horsepower. Scientists are now searching for a practical way to convert the sunshine into electrical current. Color and Disease. Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, who has been interviewed lately by a Daily Mail representative with regard to the “treatment of all kinds of illness by the use of different shades of light,” is a member of an old Catholic family, one of the oldest in England. Lord Clifford is the tenth Baron of his time, having succeeded his brother in the title nine years' ago. Educated at Beaumont by the Jesuits, ho went, a young man, to New Zealand, and afterwards settled for a time in Tasmania, where he busied himself with a variety of farming enterprises. As a practical farmer, Lord Clifford made a special study of the action of colored light upon the growth of vegetation. He seems to have come to the conclusion that all colors of the spectrum may be utilised for the cure of different complaints. It is his hope that the new method which he is investigating may eventually lead to a cure for consumption. By Air to Anywhere. Six years ago the first regular aerial passenger service was inaugurated between London and Paris. To-day all the capitals of Europe are linked by air with London, and every month the fleet of Imperial Airways, Limited, fly on an average 135,000 miles —more than the equivalent of five times round the world. Nor is this all. There is shortly to be inaugurated an aerial mail service between Port Said and India, and eventually this will be extended by way of Rangoon and Singapore to Port Darwin, thereby bringing Australia within about 100 hours of London, compared with the thirty days now taken by the fastest mail steamers. Flying Hospitals'. Almost every day sees some new step in man’s conquest of the air. The latest is the proposed aerial ainbulance, which is to be fitted with an operating theatre constructed on the lines of, and containing all the apparatus usually found in, the operating theatre of a, modern hospital. The great success of aerial ambulances, in which vibration has been eliminated, has convinced the experts, 1 both medical and mechanical, that there is every possibility of producing a machine of such stability that minor operations, and, in cases of urgency, major

operations as well, can be performed in midaix\ The usefulness of such a machine cannotsSPp be exaggerated. Suppose, for instance, soldier were taken ill in an isolated outpost 'Ugf in Iraq. Immediately the aero ambulance |||p| would be sent for to carry him to the nearly military hospital. If he suddenly ‘ becfepe worse on the way, the fact that an immediate operation could be - performed in mid-air might be the means, of saving his life.