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Show Keeping Up !iene Science service WNU Service. World's Only Chimp Twins Have Birthday Rival Dionne Quints as Scientific Marvel By MARJORIE VAN DE WATER ORANGE PARK, FLA. The twins, Tom and Helene, are to the chimpanzee world what quintuplets are to the human family. They are the only pair of undoubtedly genuine genu-ine chimpanzee twins known to science. Their first birthday has Splitting Hairs Is Real Aid to G-Men in Catching Crooks New Invention Permits Better Cross-Sections WASHINGTON. A device having almost unlimited possibilities possi-bilities in many fields, including includ-ing crime detection, the fur industry, in-dustry, textile manufacture, and agriculture has been invented by Dr. J. I. Hardy, fiber technologist tech-nologist of the Department of Agriculture. The Invention makes possible the rapid cross sectioning, microscopic study, and photographing photograph-ing of the delicate inner structure of hair, wool, fur, silk, cotton, and other fibers, without Injury. Very thin cross sections can now be made In ten minutes. Formerly it took several hours to obtain less satisfactory satis-factory results. Realizing Its application to the Department of Justice's attack on the racketeer and gangster, J. Edgar Ed-gar Hoover, director of the federal Just been reported nere 10 iue scientific sci-entific world. The story of their development, the cutting of their baby teeth, their learning to crawl and walk and cilmb, and their mental growth has now been told by their scientific guardians. Dr. Robert M. Yerks, of Yale university and Michael I. Tomilin, who had so much to do with their upbringing that, as he puts it, he was accepted as a member mem-ber of the family. Mona, the mother, has been called "an experienced mother." She bad already had three babies before the twins arrived. Recently a grandchild grand-child of hers, the first "civilized" chimpanzee grandchild born of a captive-born mother, arrived and was announced to the scientific world. Mother Favors Weaklings. Twins provided no thrill to Mona. Rather she seemed bored with this doubling up of her maternal duties. du-ties. Nevertheless, she gave them good care and was particularly gentle with tiny Helene, who was the weakling. This tenderness, toward to-ward the frailer infant was of great Interest to those watching her, because, be-cause, so far as is known, none of the lower mammals ever discriminate discrimi-nate In favor of a weakling or runt. "Such discriminative attention as was manifest in this case of chimpanzee mother and twins may chance to be peculiar to the primates pri-mates or to the anthropoid apes and man," the scientists report The twins were perfect little creatures crea-tures when born but extremely tiny only about two or three pounds ln weight and very weak. Helene a careful study of Us uses to be made. "Our technical experts are studying study-ing this device to determine whether wheth-er it can be utilized as a new means of examining fibers and hairs. The simple and rapid method Is the sort of technique well adapted to the needs of Investigators seeking to solve crime where time, detail, and accuracy are of the utmost Importance," Impor-tance," he said. Besides its yse to cross-section quickly any hair or tuft of cloth lng a criminal might leave behind him the Invention promises to be of value ln detecting misrepresentation misrepresenta-tion of quality of clothing or furs, a common practice of the fur-racketeer. It should also have Its use ln legitimate comparison of qual Ity, as well as aiding stockmen and cotton growers to know what type of plants or animals produce the fibers most demanded by industry for high-quality products. Three metal parts make up the device, which is three Inches long altogether. By means of a screw-controlled screw-controlled plunger, fibers are moved in a tiny slot 0.00S5 of an inch wide and made to project slightly, while held tightly together In proper align ment. A drop of quickly drying celluloid cel-luloid on the projecting fibers "fixes" them so that they can be sliced off crosswaysin any thickness desired, down to one ten-thousandth of an Inch. Even such hairs as those of the deer, hollow Inside, are not crushed or injured, due to the celluloid. Electrical Speed Cop was especially weak ana inactive. It was not until the fourth day after aft-er her birth that she was able to nurse. But due to her mother's good care, she picked up weight and was even larger than her twin brother for the first six months. After that Tom took to his supplementary supple-mentary feeding better than Helene and soon outstripped her in growth, becoming a husky little fellow. Personalities Differ. The first teeth came ln the same order that the human baby cuts them, but because of the more rap-Id rap-Id development of the apes they appeared ap-peared much earlier. Personality difference were as obvious in these chimpanzee babies as they would be In any pair of human infants. Tom was always the adventurer, aggressive, eager and playful. Helene, the mother's favored one, was relatively timid, ' shy and backward. It was she who hesitated to make friends with Tomilin. She would cling shyly to her mother, and as she grew older would run to her brother for protection. pro-tection. It was six months before the twins recognized each other as I playmates, and then it was Tom who would take the Initiative ln their monkeysliines. Aids Law in Judging Speeds of Motorists AMHERST. The universal protest of motorists caught I speeding, "But officer, I was only doing twenty-five," may soon be a thing of the past. A new portable electrical device, measuring the instantaneous speed of an automobile and lessening less-ening the chances of error on the part of traffic officers has been perfected by Dr. Harry R. DeSilva, head of Massachusetts State college's psychology laboratory lab-oratory here. Two concentrated beams of light are thrown across a road by 50 candle can-dle power lamps operated from an auto storage battery. These activate two photoelectric cells ln the Indicating Indi-cating instrument An automobile passing across the light beams, which are only 18 inches apart cuts first one light beam, charging a condenser con-denser In the recording apparatus, and then, a fraction of a second later, cuts the second beam, stopping stop-ping the charging process. The amount of "charge" ln tne concenser is translated directly by the, Instrument In-strument into miles per hour. Accuracy Ac-curacy within two miles per hour at CO miles auto speed and within a fraction of a mile at 30 miles an hour is claimed. There's Privacy Even in Gold-Fish Bowl, If SAN DIEGO, CALIF. Can a fish hide in a gold-fish bowl? Yes, if it is a white fish in a white fish-bowl, or a black one In a black fish-bowl, should be the the answer of Dr. F. B. Sumner of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Oceanogra-phy, University of California, who has been making some new experiments experi-ments in color change with fishes. Two tanks, each eight feet by fifteen, were painted respectively black and very pale gray (called "white" for convenience) and both filled with water two and a half feet deep. Then several hundred Gambusia, "mosquito fish," originally original-ly the same color, but half of which had turned black and half "white," after a month's sojourn at Scripps Institution on backgrounds of those respective colors, were turned Into the tanks. As the fishes entered the tanks at one end, penguins were turned loose at the other. In the "white" tank, where both black and white fishes could be seen, the penguin caught and ate ' three black fishes to every two white ones. In the black tank, where it was harder to see the black fish, the penguin caught three white fish to every black one. This Medicine Man Might Do Well Here VIENNA. Surgical procedure proce-dure by an Indian medicine man in Brazil, surprisingly like that of white doctors in its essentials es-sentials but some curious differences differ-ences in detail, is described by an Austrian scientist. Dr. J. W. Freise, recently returned from an exploring trip Into the deepest South American Ameri-can jungles. ' An Indian hunter was brought In with a broken leg. The medicine man first anesthetized him with a huge quantity of home-made rum, made from sugarcane Juice. Then he set the broken bone, swathing It In the fibers of a native plant This wrapping he soaked with two kinds of oil, one of which hardened, stiffening stiff-ening the fibers Into the equivalent of a surgical cast used ln white man's medicine. Finally the whole set-up was given a protecting covering of bark, , and the Injured man's friends carried car-ried him home. |