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Zurich Herald, 1952-07-10, Page 3Frozen Or Fried :--What's Our Fate? Astonomers operating the world's most .powerful telescope at Mount Palomar, California,, recently pho- tographed a huge exploding star, the light from which had taken 150,000 light years to reach us. One light year is the distance light can travel ,in the course of a year—and the speed of light is about. 1:$6,000 miles a second. Such tremendous distances stag- ger the imagination, but they are only a small part of the wonderful discoveries scientists are now mak- ing—about the universe of which our world is such a tiny ,insignifi- cant part., • Milky Way We now know that the sun, around which our earth revolves and on which we rely for the con- tinuance of life itself, is a mem- ber of a . great disc-like system, the distant members of which are visible to us as the Milky Way. The Galaxy, as it is called, con- tains about 100,000,000,000 stars, beside a great deal of semi-solid ' matter in the form of gas and dust which has not yet condensed into Stars. Every star in the Galaxy is re- volving round the centre of the system. The sun,' which is about 30,000 light years away from the centre, takes about 250,000,000 years to complete one revolution, travel- ling at the tremendous speed of 170 miles a second and carrying us all with it. The star nearest to us is twenty- five millon million miles away and its name is Proxima Centauri, meaning the nearest star in the group called Centaur. Light from this star takes several years to reach • us. On a clear night it is easy to spot the Pole Star, one of the brightest in the Galaxy. The light from it, when it reaches our eyes tonight, started to travel in the reign of King Henry the Sixth, five centuries ago. Modern telescopes have added to our knowledge of what is going on inside the sun. It was formerly believed that over millions of years the sun's heat would gradually di- minish as• it burns itself out, with the result that our earth would be- come colder and colder until it would be impossible for life to survive. •..u�::xZBC•Y.•:../:,2::..f..n24f..:v:Svn:Y:ii:iS':+i:%,i1 Music Hath Charms ... And "Fang", mascot of the 1st Battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, seems delighted with the bugle solo of Pte. Art Furnass of the Battalion's band. The picture was taken in Korea where the PPC LI are now serving with Canadian Forces. Getting Hotter Latest theory, however, is that instead of getting cooler, he usn is gradually becoming hotter. In about ten billion years it will be so hot that all life on its planets will be burned to death, not frozen. After some fifty billion years it will swell up monstrously and con- sume the inner planets, including the earth. Eventually its heat will begn to fade and it will cruise through space without throwing off any light, surrounded by its outer planets. Astronomers now believe that there 'are at least 100,000 solar systems in the universe which are capable of creating and supporting life as we know it. They compare our world to a speck of pollen floating in the Pa- cific Ocean and point out how pre- sumptuous we are to assume that life is monopolized exclusively by this one tiny planet. TABLE TALKS eiate Andrews Far too few Canadian housewives make an extensive use of herbs in their cookery. It's a • great pity, too, because so many dishes fall short of perfection just for the lack of that "touch" which only herbs can give. * * * And it isn't necessary to "grow your own"—although it's a fascin- ating pursuit if you have the time and space to do it. ;. However, popular demand has made freshly dried products readily available; and they only await in- creased knowledge of their use to become as necessary to good food seasoning as salt and pepper. * * * Commercial herb growers in various sections of the country do a thriving snail -order business di- rectly with the -housewife; while the shelves of most specialty food shops in large cities are well - stocked with jars and boxes of separate varieties and blended mix- tures for specific uses. * * * Perhaps the following will serve as a guide to the beginner in the use of the more common varieties. Mint— For peas, either fresh or in soup. Sprinkle on. boiled potatoes and 'carrots. One-half teaspoonful in currant jelly for roast lamb. .A dash in cream cheese for sand- wiches. A pinch in apple sauce. * * * Basil— Improves any dish containing tomato. Sprinkle over scrambled eggs. • Add to stuffing for baked fish. Sprinkle over boiled or creamed potatoes. Mix with cream and cottage cheese. Dust on vegetable salads. * * * Thyme— Add to fish chowder. Add to oyster stew. Add to turkey stuffing. Include in beef loaf. Improves pot roast. * ;oast. Savory— Flavors all beans—lima, string, shill. Add to stuffing for turkey, veal, ish, duck, goose. Sprinkle over fish or• vegetable salad. - Marjoram,-- Sprinkle over roast pork. Flavors soups. Add to stuffing for chicken or turkey. Add to sauce for fish. Parsley— Flavors cheese. Sprinkle on poached eggs. Sprinkle on fricasseed chicken. Add to melted butter sauce for vegetables. Flavors tomato soup. Sprinkle over boiled or mashed potatoes. Sage— Add to 'goose and Sprinkle Sprinkle plant. * * stuffing for veal, pork, turkey. over broiled pork chops. over any dish of egg- * * * The following blend makes a most satisfactory flavoring pow- der: 6 ounces 6 ounces 3 ounces 3 ounces 3 ounces marjoram savory basil thyme tarragon Combine thoroughly and keep in small jars so that the whole mix- ture is not open to the air at once. This is an excellent combination for stews, soups, and ragouts. In the use of powdered herbs, it is always well to bear in mind that they are more potent than fresh ones, therefore a smaller amount will be required. The flavor should be subtle, not dominating. Capsule -size Motor Runs Electric Watch An experimental electric wrist- watch has been made which has no main spring --nothing but a battery and a capsule -size motor that de- livers power at a constant rate. The Elgin Watch Company has built such a watch in America and the Lip Watch Company in France. When the two companies learned that they were independently work- ing along the same lines they de- cided it was common sense to join forces and exchange information. Electric clocks are old. Hence an electric watch seems, a natural evolution. The late T. Albert Pot- ter, president of the Elgin Watch Company and later chairman of its board, suggested the idea to George C. Ensign, the company's research director. Potter learned that Ensign and his men had long been working on the idea. Contrary to expectations, it turn- out that an electric watch had to be something different from a min; iature electric clock. It was not enough to reduce the size of an electromagnet that was good en- ough for a clock. The reason is that the working force of an electro- magnet decreases at an unexpected rate with ditninution in size. View of Peru — Airline hostess Isabel Carrion of Lima, Peru, holds one of the 1500 pieces of ancient Peruvian art on display in Chicago. The e x h i b i t i o n, which runs until September, traces the artistic development of the ancient Peruvian Mochi- ca and Nazca Indian tribal cultures. Designing a suitable electric mo- tor was no mean task. Nor was it obvious how the flow of electric energy to the motor could be con- trolled, or how enough energy could be diverted to drive the hands. The energy capsule presented a wohle set of problems in itself, if high voltage was to be maintained. Con- ventional principles no longer ap- plied to mechanism that was to produce only one seventy-five mil- lionths of a horsepower. At first it was thought that the type of cell used in hearing aids would do as a source of 'power. That proved to be wrong. After much research a cell was developed which is smaller than a penny and which will drive the watch motor a for more than a year. The voltage is constant to the very end. Time keeping is perfect. The motor presented more dif- ficulties. Finally sub -miniature coils were developed that are slightly more than an eighth of an inch in diameter and one thirty-second of an inch long, wound with 3,000 turns of insulated copper wire one- sixth as thick as a human hair. THE POOR IMPS Joe Page, the Yankee relief pitcher, says he dreamed one night that he was in heaven, and was assigned the task of forming a baseball team of all the great stars available there. "But who'll we play against?" he asked. Just then the Devil telephoned and challenged him to a series. "Four games out of seven," suggested the Devil, "and no miracles on either side." "What Page. "Every great ball player goes to heaven when he dies!" "I'm not worrying," the Devil told him. "I've got all the umpires." Gruesome Tale Peggy Wood, the operetta star, watched the rain pouring down one night from the haven of a warm, friendly drawing room, and remembered this story she had heard years ago in England. A country doctor, cursing the luck that called him out on the worst night of the year, was splash- ing his way homeward on his motorcycle, on an old road full of bumps and holes. Suddenly he heard a cry for help. A luckless motorist had skidded off the road, and his car was up to the hubs -in mud in a ditch. "Obviously I cannot pull you out with this motorcycle," said the doctor, "but if you'll hitch on be- hind me, I'll ride you into town. It's only three or four miles, and we'll find someone there to drive you back and get your car on the road again." Before the grateful motorist climbed aboard the cycle, he was advised by the doctor to reverse liis raincoat, back to front, to pro- tect hint a little better from the driving rain. Then they set out On the rocky road to town. The -isloctor said .nothing . until he saw the first lights of the main street flickering through the storm. "Here we are," he pointed out then. "We'll soon have help for you." When there was no reply, the doc- tor looked behind him. He was alone on the motorcycle. "Good•heavens," he thought, "the poor., fellow must have fallen off 1" He , turned the cycle about and began retracing the ground. A mile back he came upon his erst- while passenger, Iying motionless on the road, surrounded by a group of wet and bedraggled cot- tagers. "Is he doctor. "I'm afraid so," answered one of the cottagers. "'We were in our house yonder when we heard his moans above the wind and the storm. When we found him he was in terrible shape, sir. His head had been twisted clear around! My son and I twisted it back just as far as we could. but ever since he hasn't moved or made a single sound!" badly hurt?" cried the The other morning, a couple of days before retiring after thirty- two and a half years of telling stories to children for the New York Public Library and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Mrs, Eleanor H. Nave, a small, fairy-godmotherlike woman of 65, bustled daintily through the front door of the library's Yorkville branch on East Seventy-ninth Street. She almost, but not quite sprinted up a steep flight of .stairs to the children's room on the sec - and floor, without dropping a petal from the bunch of fuchsia and white rhododendron she had brought along, sat down in a child - sized chair at a child -sized table and told a grown-up about how she tells stories to children. Library officials estimate that Mrs. Nave has told her stories to and given puppet shows for (she does her own dramatizations, cos- tuming and productions) between 500,000 and a million young people ---generally fifteen to seventy-five atame. "Talti' has been about the most successful story here and at the Institute," she began. "It is a book of sixteen adventures about a nor- mal, but occasionally mischievous child who says 'I'm sorry' at the right time," (She said that "Tal" was written by Paul Fenimore Cooper, a grandson of the author of "Leatherstocking Tales.") "The stories have wisdom, humor, pathos and mystery," she com- mented,"all of which have a great appeal for the young mind. These are very normal stories with happy endings. I don't like to tell un- pleasant stories, and anyhow the children always want the prince and the princess to get married in the end. For that reason I hardly ever tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I don't care for the wolf element. And I've never told Bluebeard." What could the youngsters ex- pect when they came to one of Mrs. Nave's "hours?" "I usually tell two stories an hour. No, I don't actually read them, but I leave the book on the table to let them know where they can find the story to re -read if they want to. And then, as a rule, a little poetry at the end—Walter de la Mare's poems are among the best for our purposes." The children come to the library, Mrs. Nave related, check their lolli- pops and comic books at the door, sit down quietly and, these days, 'demand stories about men from Mars and atomic explosions. "Yes, television has had an influence on their requests," Mrs. Nave said, "brit I completely' disregard .what they want. I tell them classic fairy tales or stories dealing with folk- lore. I guess my favorite is a New Zealand folk tale called 'Maid of the Mist.' It's exquisitely written. The prose is poetic. It sings. It is simple and direct and suitable for older children and adults as well. The only trouble is that it has a tragic ending." Mrs. Nave went on to say that boys like to listen to fairy tales, too, although they are a little bash- ful about admitting it. "You know," she said, "you'd be surprised at the people who enjoy listening to a story. Children come here volun- tarily, and frequently their mothers conte with them. At the Institute doctors and nurses listen. I tell stories and show picture books to the toddlers out in Carl Schurz Park. There nurses and maids show an interest. Even the park attend,- ants ttend=ants and policemen occasionally sidle up to the edge of the circle." "It would be wonderful," she continued, "if mothers.would spend more time telling their ehildreal stories. I recommend that they memorize and tell the story rather than read ft, Children prefer it and( appreciate the personal touch, 1t' child likes to have a time set aside for him—a quiet atmosphere, aa uninterrupted session. It is some- thing that is very precious to him and a time in his life that he'll never forget." Mrs, Nave said she was going to continue her volunteer work at the Instittue. "I'm a registered nurse as well as a librarian, and I find the work there as gratifying as any I've ever done. I remem- ber one afternoon many years agcy at the Institute I was doing a pup- pet show, 'Rumpelstiltskin: There was a little boy in the audience— he couldn't have been more than 5 —who had never spoken a word in his life. The mother in the story. sings: 'My daughter hae spun five skeins today. My daughter hae spun five skeins today.' "As she was singing the little boy all of a sudden started to sing along with her. It was one of the most exciting experiences of my career." Mrs. Nave added that she wants to enroll next year for work with the Lighthouse, an organization for the blind. "I've always wanted to see 'Tal' written in Braille," she said. "I hope they'll accept me." Left -Handed Rats Has it ever occurred to you that many animals are left-handed? Rats, for instance, often use their left paw more than their right. And• most bears are left -pawed for some unexplained reason. Doctors and scientists have for years been studying left-handedness in human beings and animals. They know that the cause of left- handedness is concerned with brain development and that in right- handed men the left side of the brain is bigger, while in the left- handed the right side is bigger. But a recent medical survey sug- gests that many left-handed people are not so left-handed as we thought. Seventy left-handed and 35 right-handed men were studied, and it was revealed that many who called themselves left-handed were really ambidextrous, although they did not realize it. AIR Air samples taken from the noses of V-2 rockets have shown that the atmosphere is evenly mixed up to a height of' 36 miles, said Prof, Arthur Paneth at' a recent meeting of the British Chemical Society, Above 36 miles there is evidence of gravitational separation of the argon and neon. MERRY MENAGERIE Cry+,,41. V,i IN, PrcA., .Wold IyM. kwkI ,, W,brN h , how. kwiw✓., 'Her husband waddled away with another woman!" x . a...z3a w ay..i•h k...x «.,,vra Tank Lifter—Designed for moving artillery pieces, tanks, bridge sections and trucks is the jet - powered XH-17, the world's largest helicopter. The tank -carrier is powered by two turbojets which send. power through ducts up the rotor shaft and out to the tips of the giant rotor blades. The king Of the 'copters straddles a cargo, picking up lo ads by attachments to the landing gear and body. JITTER moilinirimmiimmarimmouromatemprogomm By Arthur Pointer