@ SCIENCE FEATURES E North Americans used to look down on the Japanese be- cause so many wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses. Now it seems as if the laugh is going to come back on us. Americans are developing eye troubles on a mass scale. Al- _réady the situation is so bad that two out of every ten young people have eye defects before they get their first job. At the age of 40, every other person has faulty sight. This is an intensely personal problem. The eyes you are’ us- ing to read this paper can never be replaced. Nothing is worse than blindness. It is worth while to find out what science does and doesn’t know about eye fail- ures. Of course we can’t begin -to - eover the subject. But the U.S. navy recently gave out a highly significant fact about eye trouble and how it is caused on a large scale. Midshipmen: at the Annapolis Naval Academy are almost per fect physical specimens of youth. When they enter the Academy they have perfect eyes. The finest medical care is given to ‘these youths. But within four years, 12 out of every, 100 mid- shipmen have to be discharged as unfit because their eyes have failed them! : Our youngsters as a whole are far worse .off. Consider just one cause of eyesight loss among _ children today. Regardless of what our psychologists and tea- _ chers say about the good or the harm done by modern ‘comic books,” eye specialists brand these wretchedly printed papers as a major cause of weakening Poor lighting in home and school is another factor that starts millions of immature eyes on the way to failure. (NE practical measure we can all take. If youngsters insist of reading comic books, train them to sit under a good light _ whenever they pick up Super- _ man or Dick Tracy. Avery serious warning fo watch for in children is head- _ -*@here are many causes of _ headaches in grown-ups. But in _ youngsters any pain in the eyes, the. forehead or the temples is cause for alarm. Such a child _ should be taken to an eye spec- ialist without delay. ‘Another warning that doctors ig general irritability in children _ and young people. Very often this comes before eye soreness or headache. A nasty disposition during school years may be a sign of eye strain that will lead to ‘very serious vision defects if not looked after. ’ . by DYSON CARTER fees charged by opthamologists for examination, treatment and glasses are now so high that most people stay away from eye specialists until badly failing sight compels them to get at- tention. A mass campaign for free eye care is probably more needed than social measures to fight tuberculosis. But there is little hope of such a campaign being started. Along with the economic principles of free enterprise goes the brutal notion that every- body must have the right to ruin their eyes, even if they haven’t the money to save them. T IS startling to find out how little science ‘knows about the eyes. For example, only recently was it discovered that we see with two parts of the brain, not ene. The optic nerves, from the eye itself, spread out into both the ‘mid-brain’ and the ‘occipital lobes’ of the brain cortex. It kas been shown that animals which are blind, because they have lost the brain cortex con- nection, still possess certain kinds of vision. € Would it be possible to develop a ‘second sight’ in blind people, by fully investigating this strange discovery? No one can say. No money, no laboratories are avail- able for such research. Another fascinating problem concerning the eyes is what hap- pens when we do a simple thing like reading this printed page. When the eye shifts from word to word, or line to line, it seems to ‘turn off’ its vision—like the flicker of a movie projector. Sci- entists disagree about this. But all believe that very little pro- gress can be made in saving eyesight, while basic facts about the working of the eye still re- main to be discovered. One of the most puzzling prob- lems is why the pupils of the eye get smaller as we grow older. This cuts down the light coming to the eye nerves, at the very time when the eye, getting weak- er with age, needs more light. Science might find a way to re- verse this process and thus greatly improve the vision of older people. But, to do this, a .great deal more research is needed. , A’ the present time less ‘money js being spent on eye Te” search, in a whole’ year, than is being squandered on firing 2 | single army test rocket. It 18 safe to say that more money is wasted on one ‘coming out party’ for a rich man’s daughter than is available to keep up the best vision research laboratory in the nation. ' Just about the only recent practical discovery in saving eye- sight concerns smoking. It has now been proved that tobacco is we = common cause of. failing vis ion. If you are bothered DY reading; or if you sometimes notice a ‘mist? in front of your eyes; or if you do not distinguish red and green colors as well as you used to, try giving up cig@ rettes. This is one eye-saving measure we could all take wouldn’t strain our pocketboo ‘ The Electronic Age is Dawning _ by W. HURRAN | LOWLY but surely, marvell- ously but without fuss, the Electronic Age is dawning. The robot-operated factory is not far away. ‘And the robots? They will not be Frankenstein monsters with a tendency to run amok, but small, insignificant metal boxes, eentaining ordinary radio com- ponents like those of any wire- less set. } The radio industry produces an enormous variety of devices called collectively ‘electronic ap- paratus.’ Lightning speeds, amazing ac- curacy and absence of time- lag between the moment when impressions are received and when they are acted on, are the main features of these devices. They can measure any quan- tity, control’ any mechanical or chemical process, observe and record high-speed. phenomena— in fact do anything but think for themselves. Suppose we wish to photo- graph the effect of a. bullet striking glass. An electronic device operated ‘by the impact of the bullet on the glass immediately fires a discharge tube, producing a brilliant flash of light lasting one-millionth of a second.. In the measurement of time, A good electric clock may show errors amounting to one part in twenty thousand. But a radio transmitter working at several million cycles a second has been held to within one cycle per day, an accuracy of ene part in.a hundred thousand million. Accuracies of one in a hundred million held over long periods are commonplace. — electron microscope is per- haps the finest single contri- bution this science offers to mankind. Magnifications of nearly a quarter of a million have been reached, some hundred © times better than optical instruments, which are limited by the fact that they can observe in detail nothing much smaller than the wavelength of light. The electron microscope also has a limit, but only for objects ene hundred thousand times smaller than those observed by _ optical instruments. , It is fair to claim that nothing is so small that the electron microscope will not eventually view it. ‘ : With a possible theoretical magnification of another thou- sand times, present development has temporarily halted, but al- ready fibres only five atoms thick have been seen, and in- finitely small living organisms parasitic to bacteria discovered. ‘check on cannot so. easily dissipate, Reva® may be described as has been utilised for the — the electron telescope. Radar echoes ‘have been re- ceived back from the moon. When apparatus giving reliable signals for this return trip of half a million miles is made, the mieasure of distance will be so good that heights of mountains oa the moon will be known more accurately than now. A new inter-planetary dis- tances may be possible. Radio heating has many ad- vantages over all other methods. The effect is uniform right through the substance, instead of being produced on the surface and working its way to the middle. mae Actually, as the internal heat the effect is greatest inside the ma- terial if the process is sustained. _ This heat can be focussed or localised, leaving surrounding objects or adjacent parts of the same object cool. A meal can be cooked on a serving plate without making the plate un- comfortably hot. — hie cf tin-box industry uses radio heat extensively for soldering — seams, sometimes in inaccessible places and at remarkable speeds. on continually moving conveyor belts. . = : : ae By using very high frequencies the heat in metals can be con- fined to the surface. This effect sre Boy face hardening of tools. I. The ability to localise radio heat and produce it in place impossible by other methods has; resulted in simplification of 4° ‘sign and processes, cutting dow” manufacturing times, in adil : to the time saved in the actu heating operation. iets The medical profession uses small degrees of radio heat #? the treatment of many ailment® warming affected organs wie out raising the temperature of the whole body. L ; A radio knife used for sure cal operations cauterises the. blood as it cuts and eliminal®” all bleeding. fe , FLzCTRONIC workers have ready produced new music instruments, , Future conceptions of musi? will be bound up with appar” possessing the ability to mim! all existing instruments, oF P ‘duce entirely new tonal cb teristics; to make any note the highest to the lowest of volume level and to §' note for any length of time What is there in store for Three-dimensional color vision is one thing. - may yet see an illustrated ° paper printed in your 7 ready to read when you arise the morning. : “The ‘electronic age Will us things yet undreamed of PACIFIC TRIBUNE—F!