WELDING OFFERS CAMERA STRIKING FIELD OF BEAUTYBy no means a trivial by-product of electric welding is the field of beauty the new art is opening up for photographers.While electricity eliminates the irritating staccato of noisy riveting, the photographer focuses his camera on a glowing scene of shadow and light, man and steel. Such a picture is that reproduced on the front cover of this week�s Science News Letter from the shops of the Westinghouse Company. The ends of a ring of steel, to be used as a "skirt" for an oil circuit breaker, are being welded.The use of welding in erecting buildings ...

NEW INDIAN TOMB YIELDS STRIKING ARTIFACTThe first picture to reach the United States of one of the most striking art objects recovered from Indian tombs recently opened at Guerrero, Mexico, is shown on the cover of this week�s Science News Letter. The vessel was photographed just as it was taken from the tomb, with earth still clinging to it. The style is said to be similar to that of the Toltecs, a powerful Mexican Indian tribe that attained a high civilization about the time of the Middle Ages.SUGAR PLAYS LEADING PART IN PNEUMONIA GERM�S ACTIVITYA new understanding of the much-feared pneumon...

SPIDERS' EGGS FORM PATTERN LIKE MOSAIC OF PEBBLESLike a rough mosaic of pebbles is the array of spider's eggs photographed by Cornelia Clarke and reproduced on the cover of this week's Science News Letter. Although smaller than small pinheads, the enlarging lens brought the eggs up to such apparent size that they were guessed to be puffballs, moldy grapes, and a number of other objects of similar size by persons to whom the photograph was first shown.SUPER-SENSITIVITY OF NEW RESEARCH TOOL IS CONFIRMED"A powerful new tool for research, one thousand times more sensitive than the most delicate me...

TELETYPEWRITERS CAN NOW BE USED IN HOMEOn the cover of this issue of the Science News Letter is shown a portion of the mechanism of the teletypewriter, a hybrid medium of communication. The new teletypewriter service is a telegraph system with telephone methods and typewriting thrown in for luck. It is now possible to use teletypewriters, formerly restricted to specialized fields, in either the home or the office after the manner of a telephone. A nationwide hook-up of teletypewriter stations is responsible.Teletypewriters transmit typewritten messages electrically so that whatever is typed at...

EASTER LILY UNFOLDS TALE TO X-RAY'S PIERCING EYEOrdinarily it is necessary to pull a flower to pieces to find what it is doing at any given moment in its development�and that, naturally, precludes one from following its development any further. One must turn to other flowers, at other stages of their unfolding, and ruin them in their turn.But the X-ray technique evolved by Mrs. Hazel Englebrecht of Des Moines offers the possibility of studying the whole drama of a developing flower or other plant organ, and yet leaving it inviolate, its robe untorn. The cover picture of this issue of Science N...

EXPLOSIONS USED TO LOCATE OIL FIELDS IN SOUTHWESTA beautiful explosion, so large that the camera could only catch a part of it with sufficient clarity to detail its streaked and billowing effects, is reproduced on the front cover of this week's Science News Letter. It is one of hundreds of such blasts that have located valuable new oil fields along the Gulf coast of Texas and Louisiana.Several hundred pounds of dynamite buried about 20 feet deep is detonated. It explodes with terrific force, sending miniature earthquake shocks out in all directions. Some of the earth vibrations travel smoothly...

UNEARTH NEW PORTRAIT OF KING TUT'S GIRL-WIFEA new portrait of the girl-wife of that well-known Egyptian pharaoh, Tutankhamon, has been unearthed from the ruins of Tel-el-Amarna, where the Egypt Exploration Society has been excavating. The portrait is a beautiful little head, with exquisitely modeled features. It is less than 2 inches long.Identity of the portrait has been settled with reasonable certainty by J.D.S. Pendlebury, who directed the excavations. Without hesitation, Mr. Pendlebury pronounced the face to be so closely like that of a woman on the back of a chair in Tutankhamon's tomb t...

WEIRD LEATHER COSTUMES PROTECT ELECTRIC WORKERSDressed in the clothes of imagined creatures from a distant planet, these power plant operators open and close the switches of transmission lines that bring power for electric lamp and industrial motor. The costume, a new invention of safety engineers, is designed to protect the wearer from flashes of fire that occur when high-voltage conductors become short-circuited.After experiments with asbestos and other materials from which safety clothing is usually made, engineers of a power company in Cincinnati chose white chromium leather as the best ma...

PUSSY WILLOWFlorists� shops have long been offering big, beautiful, and expensive wands of pussy willows. But now the willow trees and bushes out of doors are putting forth their own offerings: smaller catkins, perhaps, but with the authentic tang of the wild about them. Harmless, charming, furry wild kittens, beloved of children everywhere!Pussy willows have serious work in the world, however. They are the flower clusters of the willow, and it is their business to attend to the exchange of pollen. After fertilization is thus brought about, the seeds of the willows are launched on little cotto...

LIGHT FLOODS MONUMENT FOR CELEBRATIONScience and engineering are aiding the Washington Bicentennial celebration, for they have just joined hands to illuminate in a very realistic fashion the famous obelisk that is named for the father of his country.The striking photograph of the shaft and its reflection in the Lincoln Memorial pool shows how well the job has been done. By the combined use of floodlights and searchlights, the angular outline of the monument has been preserved, even under the glare of intense artificial illumination.TREATMENT WITH HEAT AFFECTS QUALITY OF OPTICAL GLASSThe differ...