Radio age (Jan 1927-Jan 1928)

18 RADIO AGE for February, 1927 The Magazine of the Hour Jfeeping Step with J^ SCIENCE How the Lonely Astronomer Is Fed Wide World Photo An Airplane Dropping Supplies by Means of a Parachute to the Staff of Mount Blanc Observatory Perched High on the Side of the Highest Pinnacle of the Swiss Alps. Someone Is Then Dispatched on the Perilous Task of Rescuing It, Where Ever It May Alight Four Faint Comets Are Now Visiting Us THE earth is now experiencing the unusual astronomical event of the presence of four comets near enough to be visible at the same time. Were these celestial visitors large enough to be seen by the naked eye the assemblage undoubtedly would cause apprehension among the considerable part of the population which still regards a comet as presaging disaster, a superstition inherited from the days of belief in witchcraft and black magic. Fortunately for the peace of mind of the more credulous, the four comets now in our neighborhood are far too faint to be seen by the eye alone or even in the smaller telescopes usually available to amateurs. Even the great ob servatories, provided with large telescopes and with sensitive photographic plates, are having difficulty in detecting the movements of our four visitors, so faint are these bodies. All four of the present comets are believed to have visited us before. Finley's comet, the most familiar of the four, was here in 1886, 1893, 1906, and 1919. The comet named Giacobini-Zinner, the names referring, as usual, to persons associated with the discovery, visited the neighborhood of the earth in 1900 and in 1913. Neujmin's comet was here only once previously, in 1916. The fourth of the ones now visible, that named for Professor ComasSola, of the Barcelona Observatory, is suspected of being identical with a comet first seen in 1890, named Spitaler's comet and never seen again. As far as is known the presence of comets in our heavens does not have any effect upon radio reception, although of course this is a subject upon which there is little data. Elsewhere in this issue the case of sun spots affecting reception by causing fading, is discussed and may prove of interest to readers. Land Indicated By Tides SCIENTIFIC predictions, made from studies of the tides, which led the arctic expeditions of the Norge, of Commander Byrd and others to seek a supposed continent in the polar regions, now turn out to be wrong, even from the tidal data. Such is the report of Mr. H. U. Sverdrup, just published by the Washington Academy of Sciences. As the daily waves which produce the tides move around the earth under the influence of the gravitational attraction of the moon, What Neptune Does to Propellers Wide World Photo Three of Uncle Sam's gobs inspect the barnacled port propeller on a destroyer in dry dock at San Diego, Calif., before setting to work to cleanse the screw. they are stopped and deflected by the continents. If scientists knew as much as they now do about tides but were ignorant of the existence of the American continent, it would be possible to detect the presence of this land mass from the tidal data alone. Slow Movies of a Cat's Fall EVERYONE knows when a cat falls it will turn over in the air and land on its feet, usually without injury. Recent scientific studies of the reflexes tell how this useful accomplishment is brought about. An English physiologist, Dr. F. M. R. Walshe, took slow-motion motion pictures of the fall. These show the cat's head is the first part of its body to take on the new and safer posture. The head twists with reference to the body, so the head is right-side-up. Righting of the head has been traced to a nervous reflex originating in the three small liquid-filled semi-circular tubes in the inner part of the cat's ear. These same tubes serve as "levels" for the human