Science: Happy Harmony

In Chicago last week the National Inventors Congress displayed a doughnut equipped with a handle for tidy dunking; an air-conditioned pie pan; a combination vanity case, walking stick, beach cape and umbrella. This is the organization which turned up in former years with a cow-tail restrainer (to prevent milkers from being switched); a funnel to facilitate the insertion of keys in keyholes; a mirror-maze mousetrap, hundreds of similar marvels.

Fifty thousand patents are issued in Washington every year. The vast majority of these are flops; most important inventions are made by hired technicians...

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