In Kansas City

Following are salient points made at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held in Kansas City, Mo., last week:

The meeting was addressed by its retiring President, Dr. J. McKeen Cattell of Manhattan, and by its President for 1926, Dr. Michael I. Pupin. Dr. Cattell described "a new profession of psychological and industrial engineering," already successful in England. "In every field of activity, from the use of the pick and shovel, of typewriter and ledger, through the factory and office, to the organization of the work of the Executive or the Congress of the nation, investigations might be made which, if put into effect, would add from 10% to 100% to effective productivity and lessen to an equal extent effort and fatigue." Dr. Cattell told of labor's change of heart toward such studies, which were not to be compared with psychoanalysis, phrenology, face-reading and other "quackery." He revealed that the late Samuel Gompers had a long correspondence with scientists with a view to advocating psychological selection of employes, and other industrial applications of scientific theory.

Smithsonian Program. Study of the ultraviolet rays in sunlight; of the sea's water, waves, currents, tides and the sea's relationships to men, animals and plants; of the 600,000 odd kinds of insect that compete with man for existence on the earth; expansion of plant studies in South America (for drugs, gums, oils, spices, fibres, fruits and dyes)--that, broadly speaking, would be the program of the Smithsonian Institution this year--Austin H. Clark, Washington, D. C.

Millikan Ray. Dr. Robert A. Millikan, director of the Norman Bridge Physical Laboratory (Pasadena) reported his five years' research upon a new ray, shorter, quicker, more penetrating than even the Xray. It will pierce two feet of lead. It reaches the earth continuously from surrounding space. Whence it comes, what it does to the earth, how and whither its vast power can be directed, Dr. Millikan could not say.

Miller v. Einstein. Conclusions drawn from thousands of "etherdrift" experiments at Mt. Wilson Observatory (10,000 calculations in 1925 alone) were: 1) That, contrary to the assumptions of Dr. Albert Einstein, there is an all pervasive substance in the universe through which all matter moves; 2) That this substance, ether, has a motion imparted to it by moving matter (a motion similar to that of water following the stern of a moving ship). In the case of the earth, the ether is subject to a 95% drag, but slips away again 50%; 3) That the whole solar galaxy (group of planets) is moving toward the constellation of the Dragon at a rate of 120 miles a second. The significance of the ether-drift calculations in brief is: The man who made them, Dr. Dayton C. Miller of the Case School of Applied Science (Cleveland), President of the American Physical Society, participated in the original ether-drift experiments of Professors Michelson and Morley 20 years ago, upon which Dr. Einstein built his theory of relativity. Dr. Miller's new figures are the most complete and accurate yet made and tend to alter, if not to disprove, Dr. Einstein's propositions. Also, establishment of the existence of ether is fundamentally important to scientific knowledge of the structure of matter. Dr. Miller's work was recognized as the "most notable contribution to the advancement of science in 1925," and he was awarded the Association's annual prize of $1,000.

"Fitter Families." At midwestern state fairs, competitions are being held with blue ribbons and silver cups as prizes, for families who submit themselves to examination by physicians, geneticists, psychiatrists, dentists, oculists, for ratings in family health, history and heredity. Pedigrees are also worked out noncompetitively, "fitter families" being the slogan of the movement, as explained by Dr. Florence Brown Sherbon, University of Kansas, before the Association.

New "Geometry" On the assumption that Dr. Einstein's propositions are true, a new, non-Euclidian system of space and spatial measurement is built upon them. In this Einsteinian system, no line is absolutely straight; projected, the ends of any line will ultimately meet, forming a circle whose circumference is estimated at 18 quintillions of miles. An arc of this circle is as straight as a real line can be, and truly measures the shortest distance between two points in the universe as it actually exists--that is, in a universe full of conflicting masses of electricity and spinning bodies whose pulls and counter-pulls "warp" space "out of shape." But a mathematical system for measuring universal space cannot properly be called "geometry," which means "earth-measurement"--Dr. James Pierpont, Yale University.

Child Scientists. The contrast of the U. S. boy when he enters kindergarten and when he emerges from college, is depressing. All children are natural-born scientists, and then "the little-boy spirit that makes him tear up a drum to find out what is inside gives way to the falsely superior attitude of not caring a continental"--Dr. E. Laurence Palmer, Cornell University.

Animals Spared. "Although potatoes and cabbages do not actually have chicken pox and scarlet fever, they have diseases which correspond to them to some extent. Hence plants can be and are used in place of rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, for years martyred in the cause of discovering sources of human disease--Dr. James Johnson, University of Wisconsin.

Planetary Collisions. Colonel John Millis, retired Army engineer, expounded a new theory of planetary formation, including the proposition that collisions of large heavenly bodies shatter off fragments (such as Earth), which thereafter whirl around their coalesced parents as satellites.

Election. The Association Council, acting for the membership of some 15,000, elected as the Association's President for 1927, Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey, author, botanist and horticulturist, onetime (1903-13) Dean of the College of Agriculture, Cornell University.

Other Conventions

What time the American Asso ciation for the Advancement of Science met last week in Kansas City, other national scientific bodies met elsewhere, as follows: At Yale University-- The Geological Society of America, Anthropological Association, American Zoo logical Society. At Cornell University -- The Archeological Institute of America, The American Psychological Association. At the University of Michigan -- The American Historical Association. At Columbia University and in Manhattan -- The American Economic Association, American Political Science Association, American Association for Labor Legislation, and kindred organizations.