Science: Wartime Technology, Dec. 21, 1942

There was much wartime news last week from the technological fronts:

> Plastic petroleum, developed by Gulf Oil for business machines, now lubricates the magazines of the Oerlikon 20-mm. rapid-fire gun. Reason: it stays soft, sticks to metal at arctic and tropic temperatures.

> Paper pipe, which needs no priority number, may replace steel casing in oil drilling. Made like a mailing tube of resin-filled paper, it is hard, stiff but not brittle, so light a man can carry 70 feet of the three-inch size under one arm.

> U.S. ersatz materials are often better...

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