Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 52 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION should be concentrated on this structure, rather than, as hitherto, on the liver, muscles, bone marrow, etc. This bit of work may well prove of fundamental importance during the development of atomic energy and—later— during the development of space flight with its hazards of cosmic radiation injuries. NEW INSTRUMENT As our new series on Mile- stones in Science points out, science does not progress by men and minds alone. Instru- ments are needed, too. A welcome addition to the world’s instruments has just been devised by workers at the Radiation Physics Labora- tory, U.S. Bureau of Stan- dards*. This is an apparatus for determining the energy of a single x-ray photon. It employs the principle that, when an x-ray photon is totally absorbed in a large volume of a “‘scintillating”’ matter (e.g. xylene), a light pulse amplitude is produced 112 that is proportional to the x-ray energy. By clever design and ingenious use of materials, R. S. Foote and H. W. Koch have produced a device that will work over the x-ray energy range of 0.5 to 50 Mev. BRAIN SURGERY Neurosurgery is a favourite topic among the best science fiction writers who see in it tremendous possibilities for the relief of mankind’s mental ills in. the future. Professor E. D. Adrian in his Presiden- tial Address to the British Association at Oxford last September said: “Only the writers of science fiction would suggest a future in which the problems of civilisation will be dealt with by tampering with the brains of some or all of mankind.’ The good pro- fessor’s tone of disparage- ment was rather misplaced and hopelessly out of touch with modern neurosurgical wonders, for the medical journals ever more frequently give accounts of the tremen- dous benefits that brain “‘tam- comicloooks.com