From the January 12, 1929 issue
INTERESTING ANIMALS NEVER SEEN IN ZOOS
Some of the world's most interesting animals never have been seen in the United States. Others appear in American exhibits so infrequently that they are known to the general public only from stuffed specimens in museums or pictures in zoology textbooks.
No zoo can hope to present a complete collection of the animals of the globe. The great and inevitable gaps are due to a variety of reasons. In the first place, no zoo could hold all the animals, even if provided with all the buildings appealed for annually in the official report. Many creatures cannot, or will not, live in captivity. This weakness may be purely physical, as is the case with some of the delicate and beautiful South American monkeys in whom the life processes seem delicately balanced to a specific environment. With others it may be essentially temperamental. Some animals fret themselves to death in captivity. William T. Hornaday long ago formulated zoo ethics in the words, "If an animal will not live happily in captivity, do not keep it in captivity." Beside being humane, this is a thoroughly practical idea, because if an animal will not live happily, it usually will not live at all.
HOURLY REPORTS FOR SAFE AIR TRAVEL
Hourly reports of weather along the airways are one of the needs of civil aeronautics. In this way the pilots may be immediately informed of any changes in weather conditions, Willis R. Gregg of the United States Weather Bureau recently told members of the American Meteorological Society.
At the present time, the established airways cover some 14,000 miles, with about half this distance lighted for night flying.
TELEVISION AT STAGE OF 1921 RADIO
"Television is not a vague and remote project, but, while still experimental, is an imminent and plausible probability. Indeed, a fair parallel is to compare television in its present state of development with ordinary broadcasting in its condition in 1921."
Such is the opinion of Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, chief broadcast engineer of the Radio Corporation of America. For a considerable time, the engineers of the Radio Corporation have been making confidential experiments with television, looking forward to the time when it will be as common as broadcast music or speech. These experiments have been under Dr. Goldsmith's direction. So far has this development gone that it will be ready for the public within a few years.
"Radio television is at a stage when it is prepared to leave the seclusion of the research laboratory and enter into the daily affairs and uses of man," he said. "Intensive development work of an experimental nature has already been carried on and transmission of television material is at hand through confidential experiments and transmissions carried on at Schenectady, Pittsburgh, and New York."
Copyright 1999 Science Service
