Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 145: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION horticultural scientists have been seeking a cure for virus- infected raspberry plants. Many things have been tried, some of them quite complex. And all to no avail. Now, Dr. J. Chambers of the Scottish Horticultural Research In- stitute, Mylnefield, has shown that all you have to do is place the infected plants in warm air (35° C.) for a week or so. Who would think that a virile virus could be so _ easily conquered! Time and again the prob- lems of man are solved only by observing and learning lessons from the lower animals. During the war, the barrage balloon system was_ based upon the waving tentacles of Hydra, and the basic principle of radar has been used by bats since long before the first belfry was built! There are many other examples. The latest scientific development in gyroscopes is based upon the dynamics of the lowly Diptera—two-winged insects. Though gyroscopes are often used to maintain stability, the Gyrotron—developed by sci- entists of the Sperry Gyro- scope Company—functions as a detector of turning or yawing movements. And this is exactly the function of the halteres— modified hind wings—of the Diptera. By studying the action of the halteres, scientists were able to produce an electro- mechanical imitation which is more sensitive than any other instrument to turning move- ments. As yet, the device is still in the experimental stage, but it is expected to find applica- tion in high-speed aircraft and eventually to replace all exist- ing gyroscopic systems. Per- haps the spaceship of the future will owe its stability of flight to the vestigial hind wings of a fly! Scientists of the old school who worked with simple ap- paratus and yet made striding advances in science must often consider the present generation of researchers to be spoon-fed. Even in your editor’s labora- tory days apparatus was fitted together with corks and rubber bungs; nowadays the wonder- 144 comiclooks.corn