From the September 5, 1936, issue

SINGLE PLOW FURROW DIGS DEEP GULLY

A deep “canyon” which resulted from a single plow furrow is shown on the front cover of this week’s Science News Letter.

The tale of this wide wound of ruin in what was once a fertile hillside is tersely told by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service: Two farmers disputed the location of a field boundary. They got a surveyor to relocate it for them. They drove a furrow straight down the slope, to mark the newly determined line. Rain underscored this gesture of division again and again—with results as shown. It all gives rather grim emphasis to the Biblical admonition, “Agree with thine adversary quickly.” Or else—!!

HOPE FOR SAVING WORKERS EXPOSED TO SILICA DUST

Hope that the half million workers in the United States who are exposed to silica dust in dangerous amounts may be saved from silicosis appears in the discussions of dust diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The effectiveness of dust-control measures in preventing silicosis is seen in the experience of the South African gold mines as cited by Prof. Philip Drinker of Harvard.

“No new Rand miner who has entered the industry since August 1923 has contracted silicosis,” Prof. Drinker quoted from a South African report covering a 10-and-one-half-year period. “These facts demonstrate that the engineering and medical measures which have been directed against silicosis have achieved a very significant degree of success.”

In South Africa, and only there, it was realized at the outset, Prof. Drinker said, that dustiness would not be controlled properly unless measured and recorded routinely. Discussing various methods that have been devised for measuring the amount of harmful silica dust, Prof. Drinker said that a rapid method making use of a portable instrument was best for routine measurements.

MEASURES TEMPERATURE CHANGE IN BRAIN WHILE IT WORKS

Measuring the heat of a brainwave is the latest achievement of Dr. R.W. Gerard of the University of Chicago, who 10 years ago, with Dr. A.V. Hill, British Nobel prizeman, first measured the heat of a nerve message.

In the past 4 years much attention has been aroused since scientists found it possible to measure the electricity which the brain produces when it works. More recently, Dr. Gerard reported to the American Physiological Society, the amount of oxygen used by portions devoted to the senses of sight and touch has been measured. He has now been able, with a thermometer which records a change in temperature of 0.00075 degree Centigrade (0.0014 degree Fahrenheit) to measure the temperature changes of the living brain.