50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: September 2023

1973

Polywater’s Last Exit

“The long-standing controversy over the existence of a superdense, polymeric type of water is outwardly over. The argument started when Boris V. Derjaguin and colleagues on the Soviet Academy of Sciences noticed that sure samples condensed in tremendous capillary tubes represented a brand new, steady type of water with a density nearly one and a half instances that of strange water and a molecular construction that might solely be described as polymeric. Subsequent investigations in the united statesS.R., Britain, Germany and the U.S. argued that the anomalous properties may very well be defined by impurities. Derjaguin has now reported that current measurements by his group have revealed that their samples invariably include hint impurities.”

Drunk Intestines

“Alcohol is manufactured within the human gut by microorganisms. The quantity of pure ethyl alcohol (the potable type) produced each day is about one ounce. Ethyl alcohol ingested by a human, or produced within the gut, is carried to the liver. Within the liver 80 p.c is damaged down by alcohol dehydrogenase; the remaining 20 p.c is probably metabolized by one other enzyme, catalase. It’s the effectivity of the method that so lengthy masked the manufacturing of alcohol within the gut. The microorganisms that produce it stay unknown.”

Folks with auto-brewery syndrome produce way more alcohol each day and could seem intoxicated though they have not been ingesting.

The Jesus Lizard

“The basilisk lizard of Mexico and Central America has a novel means: it may stroll on water. In some areas this means has earned it the title lagarto Jesus Cristo—the Jesus Christ lizard. Joshua Laerm of the College of Illinois photographed the animals with a high-speed digicam. Because the basilisk picks up pace, it twists the decrease half of its physique from one facet to the opposite and thrusts every leg backward and to the facet. The result’s a fast waddle, essential to push itself forward with most power and retract every leg from the water with a minimal of resistance.”

1923

Sixteen Ohms of Malaria

“‘You’ve got sixteen ohms of malaria,’ exclaimed the person on the rheostat, to a member of the Scientific American employees who has been investigating the much-disputed Digital Reactions of Abrams, a way of prognosis and remedy developed by Dr. Albert Abrams of San Francisco. There are ERA practitioners all through the nation. Exceptional cures are mentioned to be effected, together with instances of most cancers. However there are numerous doubters out and in of medical circles. The general public, wanting on, stays in a quandary.”

ERA was an enormous medical hoax. It held that illnesses have a novel vibration price that may very well be sensed from a drop of blood, or a handwriting pattern, and handled, all with Abrams’s sealed digital packing containers.

1873

Superhuman Bugs

“M. l’Abbe Plessis, in an article in Les Mondes, says that he positioned a big horned beetle, weighing some fifty grains, on a easy plank, then added weights as much as 2.2 kilos. Despite this being 315 instances the beetle’s weight, the beetle managed to raise it and transfer it alongside. A human is absolutely 100 instances feebler in proportion. Equally, the flea, scarcely 0.03 of an inch in peak, manages to leap over a barrier 500 instances its personal altitude. Think about a human leaping 3,000 ft within the air!”

Speedy Pigeons

“Service pigeons are being completely examined, and a few have proven an exquisite pace. The Ariel, a pigeon that received the $2,000 prize within the worldwide contest in Belgium in 1871, achieved the space between New York and Stratford, Conn., sixty-four miles, in thirty minutes. One other hen, often called No. 6, made the journey in nearly as fast a time. The provider pigeon appears to own a reminiscence for locations, coupled with a really robust attachment for its abode.”