RUBY LASER PIERCES A SAPPHIRE CRYSTAL — A pulsed ruby laser piercing a sapphire crystal is shown on this week’s front cover. The laser at the Radio Corporation of America Laboratories in Princeton, N.J., generates energy so intense that it can bore a sixteenth of an inch hole in the sapphire in a thousandth of a second. The heat produced at the surface of the crystal is at least 2,800 degrees centigrade. Lasers are devices that amplify light waves and emit them “in step” to form a highly directional and powerful beam of coherent light…. Their name is derived from the term, “light a... (p. 4)

ONE-WAY SPACE MISSION TO THE MOON POSSIBLE — The feasibility, from a technical standpoint, of sending a man on a one-way mission to the moon without the propulsion to bring him back to earth was explored by two Bell Aerosystems Company scientists. John M. Cord, project engineer in Aerospace Preliminary Design, and Leonard M. Seale, chief of the Human Factors Section, at Textron’s Bell Aerosystems Company, Buffalo, N.Y., emphasized that they do not advocate such a mission although they believe it will be possible to provide a means of returning the lunar explorer or explorers to earth at so... (p. 4)

BATTLE AGAINST EXHAUST POLLUTION — The automobile exhaust problem is being attacked from many directions in an effort to preserve man’s most necessary commodity, air.... In response to regulations by local and state governments and prodding from the Federal Government, several exhaust-trapping devices for cars have come on the market, none of which controls all of the poisonous gases emitted during combustion. One, the “blow-by” or crankcase ventilation system, has received Federal approval and will be standard equipment on all 1963 cars. There are at present two ways of monitoring aut... (p. 4)

DEFORMED BABIES BORN AS RESULT OF SEDATIVE —Some 800 deformed babies are expected to be born in the United Kingdom as a result of their mothers taking a dangerous sleeping pill during early pregnancy. The drug, thalidomide, was previously reported in West Germany as causing some 400 abnormal births. It has now been withdrawn from the market…. Two Birmingham, England, investigators, Drs. Ian Leck and E.L.M. Millar, said that from the time thalidomide was put on the British market in April, 1958, till its ban in December, 1961, numerous deformities of limbs, absence of arms and legs or digit... (p. 4)

JUST ADD WATER AND STIR TO USE INSTANT CHEESES — Instant cheddar and blue cheeses (add water and stir) will soon be on the grocer’s shelf, adding to the growing list of compressed and condensed foods turned out by science.… For use in cheese sauces or sprinkled on pizzas, casseroles and other dishes needing the cheese touch, these two cheeses will soon be on the market, the American Dairy Science Association meeting at the University of Maryland, College Park, was told. The powdered cheese is made similarly to other dry milk products. Water is blended with plain cheese to make a liquid s... (p. 4)

COMPUTER CALCULATES B.C. POSITIONS OF PLANETS — The positions of the planets, the moon and the sun from 601 B.C. to 1 A.D. have been calculated using an electronic “brain,” or computer. The astronomical tables are expected to provide scholars with new insight in the study of ancient civilizations…. Dr. O. Neugebauer of Brown University, Providence, R.I., has worked with astronomical predictions from the pre-Christian era. Even before publication, the tables were used in dating and piecing together fragments of Babylonian clay tablets containing ancient astronomical records. The analysi... (p. 4)

SECOND U.S. ASTRONAUT — Lt. Comdr. M. Scott Carpenter was rocketed into space at 8:45 a.m., EST, on May 24 to become the second U. S. astronaut.… As one of his experiments, Astronaut Carpenter released a small, 30-inch balloon…. The idea of the experiment was to determine whether a man undergoing the rigors of weightlessness could maintain his depth perception. Astronaut Carpenter found that he could.… Another experiment was to eat solid food. Astronaut Carpenter reported he had no difficulty with the bite-sized snacks he carried into orbit in a plastic bag — they went down all right... (p. 4)

HAPPY HOME LIFE, YEAR 2000 — It is the year 2000. Mr. and Mrs. John Smith, Sr., prospering citizens of a prosperous America, have decided on a suitable wedding present for John, Jr.... They are going to let the boy have his old room in the Smith home, for keeps…. The room is detachable and readily transportable, as are all the rooms in this “home of tomorrow.”... Interlocking room units that can be buckled onto a house as the family expands, then unbuckled and presented to the occupants when they grow up and leave home, may be in common use some 40 years from now. (p. 4)

CANCER CAUSE IN TOBACCO — “You might as well ask a person if he believes the earth is round as to ask him if he is one of those who believes cigarettes cause cancer,” Dr. Charles B. Huggins, director of the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Chicago, told SCIENCE SERVICE.... Sixty known cancer-causing compounds have been tested.... Two components of deoxyribonucleic acid — guanine and cytosine — were made into a molecular model and a plastic frame was constructed to surround it. In this frame, Dr. Huggins showed, in slides, how all known cancer-causing aromatic hyd... (p. 4)

GLENN REPORTS ON FLIGHT — The brilliant light from the “fireball” Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. saw passing the window of his space capsule was observed by more than 1,400 scientists at a symposium in Washington, D.C. A color film, showing the astronaut in his cabin during flight, clearly revealed reflections of the burning chunks of retro-pack flying off the space capsule’s heatshield. The astronaut’s silvery suit, his face, and instruments around him in the cabin were “washed over” with a bright orange glow every time a chunk went past the window. (p. 4)