From the August 26, 1933, issue

AN APE FOR A BABY SISTER

If it is not possible or desirable to bring up the young human removed from human surroundings–why not test the effects of civilization in the reverse matter? Why not bring up an ape infant in a human home–place him in a human babys bed, dress him in infants clothes, bathe him, feed him, fondle him, and teach him just as you would a human child?

If the human beings humanity is the result of his training and his human association and environment, not his heredity, would not the young ape respond to these things by becoming “humanized?”

Dr. W.N. Kellogg, of Indiana University, was the scientist who raised these questions. But he did better than just to theorize about it–he actually performed the experiment. He adopted into his own home a little baby chimpanzee, and brought it up in the company of his own small son, who was very nearly the same age. The results are reported by Dr. Kellogg and his wife, Mrs. L.A. Kellogg, in a remarkable new book, “The Ape and the Child,” just published by McGraw-Hill.

USING AMERICAN PHOTOS, BRITONS FIND DOUBLE WEIGHT NEUTRON

The recently discovered building block of atoms, the neutron, may have a heavier brother. Evidence for the existence of a neutron of mass two instead of usual mass one is presented by Harold Walke in a communication to Nature. Mr. Walke is physicist at the Washington Singer Laboratories, Exeter, England.

This evidence is based on photographs taken in the United States by Prof. William D. Harkins, Dr. D.M. Gans and H.W. Newson at the University of Chicago, and by Prof. F.N.D. Kurie at Yale University.

These experiments took thousands of instantaneous pictures of actual collision between neutrons and nitrogen atoms. Calculations based on these pictures of these atomic disasters and disintegrations showed that some of the bombarding neutrons were twice as heavy as the original neutrons found by Dr. James C. Chadwick at Cambridge University, England, over a year ago.

FAMOUS VARIABLE STAR NOW BRIGHTER THAN EVER BEFORE

A famous star in the constellation of Ophiuchus, now visible in the southwestern evening sky, is now brighter than ever before recorded, according to Dr. Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard College Observatory. Dr. Shapley received word a few days ago from Leslie C. Peltier, of Delphos, Ohio, an assiduous amateur observer of variable stars, that this object had attained the magnitude of 6.4, nearly bright enough to be seen with the naked eye in a dark sky.

The star is known as Nova Ophiuchi No. 3, and is classed with the stars that, from a previous career of inconspicuousness, suddenly flash out with a brilliance rivaling that of the brightest stars known. Many years ago it was first observed, but, contrary to the habits of most “new stars,” as they are commonly called, which after a few years return to their original brightness and stay there, this one has continued to attract the attention of astronomers.