Every now & then some pseudo-scientific jack-in-the-box pops up with an alleged death ray. Nearest approach to a real death ray is the 19-million-volt stream of subatomic particles produced at the University of California by Ernest Orlando Lawrence's giant new cyclotron. This 225-ton machine, whose operators shield themselves by water-tank barricades, can kill white mice and destroy cancer cells at popgun range. Installed in a front-line trench it would have less effect on an enemy soldier at 50 feet than one well-aimed rifle bullet.
Bombs laden with disease germs, another persistent bugaboo of modern warfare, are shrugged off by bacteriologists....