SCLEROSIS AND COSMIC RAYS — Radiation bombarding the earth from space may be a factor in the occurrence of multiple sclerosis, the Harvard University neurologist Dr. John S. Barlow believes.… Dr. Barlow’s statistical study of the distribution of multiple sclerosis shows that the frequencies of occurrence of the disease vary systematically with geomagnetic latitude. The intensity of cosmic radiation is the only phenomenon known to be related to geomagnetic latitude.… [The disease] is much more common in the northern parts of Europe and North America than in the southern areas; and it i... (p. 4)

PRIMARY CLUE TO MATTER — The shortest lifetime of an elementary particle — only a quarter of a millionth of a billionth of a second — gives a primary clue to the structure of matter.... [S]cientists have known for about ten years of the neutral pi-meson and have been trying to pin down its lifetime. The new measurement gives theoretical physicists a new universal constant and now they must figure out why it exists or relate it to another constant. When the neutral pi-meson breaks up or decays, two photons of light are produced. These high energy photons, or gamma rays, are purely ... (p. 4)

CAT PHOBIA TREATMENT — [A] patient was cured of cat phobia by forcing herself to handle velvet until she got used to it. The patient, a 37-year-old married woman ...  had had a fear of cats as long as she could remember.... The therapist began ... [with] what she felt was the least objectionable idea associated with cats — their fur.... [First he used] velvet, which has some of the texture of cat fur. Gradually the patient progressed until she could be comfortable with a rabbit-fur glove .... The psychologist then picked out a live kitten with a mild disposition and gave it to the... (p. 4)

SCIENTISTS CALCULATE HOW MAN MAY FLY LIKE BIRD — Man may some day be able to fly by flapping a set of artificial wings, two Chilean scientists assert.... A 154-pound man equipped with 66 pounds of flight accessories would need wings about 10 feet long with a flight surface of 60 square feet. To maintain a speed of 45 to 50 miles per hour, he should flap his wings 35 times a minute or a little faster than once every two seconds. The up-and-down speed of the wing tip should be 15 to 20 miles per hour or about 10 feet per second....The man would be working about as hard as if he walked up 30 s... (p. 4)

LIP-SMACKING GRASSHOPPER — A grasshopper with a talent for lip-smacking has turned out to be quite an unusual insect. Paratylotropidia brunneri Scudder is the first insect known to communicate over fairly long distances by producing an audible sound from the mouth — literally smacking its lips…. Produced at the rate of six or seven per second, usually in groups of four, the grasshopper ticks resemble a shorter, softer version of the ticking song of a katydid. The call can be heard several yards away…. It may be … that the grasshopper’s lip-smacking signal evolved through a s... (p. 4)

From the issue of July 16, 1960 One-eyed robot hunts objects lost in the sea — A one-eyed, swimming robot with powerful claw-like pincers is being developed for hunting and retrieving objects lost in the ocean at depths up to 2,000 feet. Solaris, as the robot is called, has propellers for motion. When its TV eye spots some object on the ocean floor, an image of the object is flashed to a monitoring screen aboard a surface ship, from which operators, by remote control, guide the 500-pound robot to its prey and make it clamp the find in its claw. At a depth of 1,600 feet, Solaris c... (p. 4)

HIGH MILK CONTAMINATION FROM NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS — Radioactive contamination of milk is likely to be “the most widespread hazard” resulting from a nuclear accident or explosion depositing fission products on agricultural land, according to recent studies in England reported in a forthcoming issue of Nature…. Elements that appeared to cause the greatest contamination are the isotopes of iodine and strontium although barium-140 and cesium-137 also contribute to the peril. These findings resulted from a series of 53 experiments with 44 cows in which the fission products were artifici... (p. 4)

USSR USES SABIN VACCINE — The Sabin live polio virus vaccine, developed in the United States but not yet licensed here, is “completely harmless” and extremely effective, Russian scientists have found. They have already immunized millions of children in the USSR with the live vaccine.… The scientists said they had been particularly careful to study the possibility that the attenuated Sabin strains might turn into dangerous virus forms. They found the live vaccine to be “completely harmless.” There is no “threat of the vaccine strains’ reversion to a more virulent state.�... (p. 4)

SOLVING OF SUN’S RIDDLES — Future space probes may skim as “close” as two million miles from the sun’s visible surface, a report to the National Academy of Sciences suggests. Before this can be done, however, greatly improved materials must be developed since temperatures at that distance would be about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly the melting point of the toughest materials now known. A near-sun space probe is one of the several kinds of solar studies from high-flying balloons, satellites and probes recommended by the Academy’s Space Science Board. The suggested experi... (p. 4)

PARENTS AND DELINQUENCY — A study of 400 juvenile delinquents in a mental hospital showed with “regular frequency” that the parents unconsciously fostered the delinquent behavior in their own children…. The parents show an addiction to the child’s delinquency that is much like drug addiction. They even suffer acute “withdrawal symptoms” when psychiatric treatment results in the child’s abandoning his delinquent behavior. Then the parent is likely, unconsciously, to find excuses to interrupt the treatment or place obstacles in the way of its progress. This unconscious int... (p. 4)