Abstract
Technological retardation among certain ethnic groups has been commonly ascribed to the mental inertia associated with prolonged residence in tropical climates. However, in every direction except human resourcefulness tropical conditions favor the most rapid development. There were exceptional civilizations in tropical regions, but their decline was hastened by the failure of peoples in the New World to invent and use the wheel and the onset of the debilitating diseases of malaria, hookworm, etc. Another factor may be that the equatorial bulge happens also to be the region of greatest velocity of diurnal rotation. A device that could possibly assist in gathering data on the effect of extremes of spin is described. Its use might also reverse the trend toward overdomestication of the albino rat which threatens its continued usefulness for research. Present-day progress in space travel could favor such study.
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