Science oddities revealed

Science oddities revealed
By Jeremy Lovell


LONDON (Reuters) - One of the world's most bizarre scientific collections has gone on show.


From a home-made iron lung to ancient dentists' chairs and antique operating tables, it comprises part of the 170,000-odd items in the storerooms of London's Science Museum.


Most have never been on display but now, driven by a booming interest in science, they are being laid before a fascinated public.


"Each object tells a story," said tour manager Xerxes Mazda on Thursday. "We want to get these stories out there, but we also want the public to tell us their stories associated with these items. These objects act as a catalyst for people."


Ranged over six floors and covering an area of 30,000 sq feet, the exhibits are housed in a Victorian building near the museum's headquarters in Kensington.


They include, for example, a model of a Comet jet airliner specially made for a crash inquiry into an airplane which made Britain a leader in civil aviation in the early 1950s before a series of crashes due to metal fatigue.


There is also a piece of fuselage from one of the crashed planes graphically illustrating cracks in the metal spreading out from the corners of the fatal square portholes. Jetliner portholes have never since been square.


In the same room, lying on a shelf under a mahogany model of Concorde's delta wing, is an inflatable rubber man used to test escape mechanisms from submarines.


Lower down the building is an array of telescopes -- including one that may have been used by Captain Cook on the voyage in which he discovered Australia -- and another used by famed astronomer William Herschel.

The show is open to the public only on special tours. Booking information is available at the museum's Web site.


In the medical section are displays of dentists' chairs through the ages, drills for making holes in people's skulls to let demons out, false teeth in a range of colours and ivory models of the male and female anatomy.


One of the most peculiar items is a small bottle labelled "Aphrodisiac" containing a variety of pills and carrying in small print at the bottom the warning "poison".


"I suppose you would just have to chose your priorities," curator Alice Nicholls said with a smile

link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040902/80/f1sh1.html