From the November 24, 1928 issue.

"LUNG" TO PREVENT SUBMARINE DISASTERS

When the S-4 sank a few months ago, causing one of the greatest submarine tragedies of modern times, Navy officials gathered together and decided that drastic steps must be taken soon to restore the prestige of America with respect to making our undersea craft as safe for human beings as possible.

Now it seems that the efforts of the experts have not been in vain. Announcement has just been made that the disabled S-4 has been recommissioned and will be put into service again for the purpose of making final tests on a new device that promises to revolutionize completely the present measures for saving the lives of men submerged in sunken submarines.

The invention is an oxygen helmet resembling a cross between a gas mask and a gunny sack. For lack of a better name, it has been christened temporarily the "Lung," and it is expected that, after a short while of perfecting the device, it will be used as a regulation part of standard American submarine equipment.

 

NOBEL AWARD MAY START CONTROVERSY

"Synthetic cod liver oil," stuff that builds bones and prevents the childhood disease of rickets without the unpleasant taste of the fish oil, was recognized when the 1928 Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to Dr. Adolf Windaus of Göttingen, Germany. This is the first time that the Nobel Prize Committee has recognized any of the scientific work done on the problems of human nutrition.

The work for which Dr. Windaus received the prize was the successful repetition of experiments proving that ultraviolet light, either in the sunlight or artificially produced, will activate the chemical called ergosterol and confer on it antirachitic properties. According to the information available here, the experiments were originally performed by Prof. George Barger of the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Windaus was so impressed by Dr. Barger’s original results that he asked permission to collaborate with Barger in subsequent work on the problem. Windaus himself had been experimenting along similar lines without achieving definite results.

A scientific controversy may arise from this Nobel prize award since priority honors and patent rights are involved in the situation.

 

LOCATES NUCLEUS OF UNIVERSE

The nucleus of our "universe"—the galaxy of stars of which the sun, the Milky Way, and all the other stars that we can see are part, has now been located. This discovery has been made by Dr. Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory.

This nucleus is in the same direction as the constellations of Sobieski’s Shield, Ophiuchus, Sagittarius, Scorpion, the Southern Crown, the Altar, the Rule, and the Centaur. The latter four are all groups that can only be seen from the southern hemisphere of the earth. As we see it, the nucleus extends for about fifty degrees along the Milky Way, in these constellations. Its distance from us is about 47,000 light years.