4000-Year-Old Cataclysm Observed

Last year astronomers watching the sky in the region of the constellation of Hercules were eye-witnesses of a catastrophe which occurred four those and years ago. In about 2000 B.C. when the Pharoahs were still in the early days of their power in Ancient Egypt, a star indescribably distant from Earth suddenly exploded into what is called a Nova.

In a few short months the conflagration generated as much energy as 100,000 of our Suns would do in a year. The upper layers of the star burst away from it in the cataclysm, travelling Out wards through space at the speed of well over a thousand miles a second The light of that flare-up, travelling through space for 4,000 years before it reached Earth, finally arrived last year, showing up in the telescopes as a faint "new" star in Hercules.

"Live" Artificial Hand

A group of scientists in Russia have succeeded in using the electric potential of the human body as a source of power to operate an artificial hand Surgeons, physiologists, designers and electrical engineers have been working for some time in an endeavour to develop artificial limbs capable of taking over completely the functions of a lost arm or foot.

The idea of using the electrical potential of the human body for such a purpose is an old one. For many years this potential has been used in diagnosis. When our brain commands an organ to perform a certain function, the organism immediately begins to give off an electrical discharge. How ever, these discharges are so weak that by themselves they cannot operate the "live' artificial limb. So the idea arose of providing sufficient amplification and a miniature electronic amplifier has been developed which amplifies tremendously the energy discharged. ?

The manipulation of this limb is simple. A pick-up hand is attached to the person's forearm. Two tiny electrodes placed under the hand are sufficiently sensitive to pick up the electrical discharges from the muscles which control the opening and closing of the fingers. Extremely fine leads, as delicate as the nerves themselves, convey the current to a two-channel electronic amplifier, from which it is picked up by a 50-gram motor mounted in the artificial hand.