SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17124, 20 April 1921, Page 9

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

CHEMISTRY AND WAR.

(FROM OCU OWX COIUIESPONDENT.)

LONDON, February 24. Interesting experimental work in connexion with the fisheries of these shores is revealed in a report just issued. The investigations for which grants have been made cover a wide field, including the whole of the North Sea fisheries. Fish, it would appear, are marked and turned loose in the sea. Some arc labelled with silver wire, so that when recaptured they'ean he identified. Growth rings on the scales of the herring and salmon are noted, and the clue to the age of the plaice is furnished bv the capstones. A motor-boat is to be purchased to chase- tho lobster to his lair; the best ways of fattening the ovster are.being resolved, and the wicked slipper-limpet, which has been a pest in the oyster grounds, has been marked down for destruction.

Some of these wily nuisances were accidentally imported from America, and thev have overrun tho oyster-beds like weeds in a garden. A use has been found for the limpet, however, when crushed as chicken grit, and 1000 tons annually is being turned out in one factory. One of the most curious phases of this research is the study of plankton—a name invented by Professor Hcnsen for the drifting life composed of minute plants and animals which fish live upon. Men are beingtrained to study the drift of fish eggs and the movements of migratory fish. Professor W. A. Herdman, lecturing at the Royal Institution on oceanography, explained' that the main varieties of plankton were diatoms, dinoflagellates, and cofrefrida. The first two are plants with little glassy skeletons of silica. Cofrefrida arc like tiny crabs and lobsters, just visible to the naked eye. When fishermen find t|iese in quantity they know that herring are sure to -be about in search of a meal. One varictv of plankton, the Biddul phia sinensis, used to be peculiar to the eastern oceans. Some years ago Ostenfeld found specimens of it in the North Sea, probably brought in a crevice of a ship's hull. He traced it afterwards to Denmark and the coast of Norway, and predicted that before long it would reach British waters. Ho was rierht, for in 1909 it was found at Port Enn and Plymouth.

Chemistry Supplanting Nature. Lecturing at King's College last week, Dr. S. Smiles said that 150,000 different combinations containing carbon had been obtained b~ means of organic chemistry. New drugs, now dyes, and new explosives, had been synthosised. Now chemists were enquiring how Nature produced her various substances. If they could find out the actual processes going on in plants they might find means of stimulating plants to produce substances' desired by humanity in greater quantities. Formaldehyde was a very important substance in the synthesis of materials, in plant life. It lias been artificially produced. Organic chemistry had accomplished a great many valuablo syntheses, but attention was nosv being directed to the actual processes used by Nature. That provided a very valuable field for research. Professor J. N. Collie, who presided, said the chemist should not try to supplant Nature. .If we were always going to have margarine instead of butter there was a, very bad time in store for humanity. (Laughter.) He had hoped that the organic chemist would not got so far.as that. The modern development of organic chemistry would lead to a great deal of information that would improve life and make it more productive, but he hoped that the chemist would loam to help, and not supplant, Nature.

Search for Elephantiasis Parasite. A scientific expedition is about to start for the West Indies, under the leadership of Dr. _Leiper, who is head of the department of Helminthology at the London School of Tropical Medicine. The object in view is to investigate the parasitic worm which is believed to como from elephantiasis and other diseases. -It is expected that the expedition will consist of sis members, including five doctors, one of whom-is a Chinaman, and another nn Egyptian. The headquarters of the expedition, will be Georgetown, British Guiana, and visits will - be made to West Indian Islands to compare local conditions. . ' • .

. 'There are two methods' of combating the diseases in question," said Dr. Leiper, in an interview," one of which '—endeavouring to destroy tho parasite itself by means of drugs—l am not hopeful of. The second is to find tho mosquito .which transmits the parasite, and take : measures accordingly. To discover this we shalL.probably have to place a patient suffering from elephantiasis, or some other disease of the same group, in a room wherein numbers of mosquitoes are let loose. After they have bitten the patient wo shall have to sort them out and endeavour to discover which species it is that transmits the worm, for it is known that all of them do not." The expedition is being organised under the personal supervision of Sir Patrick Hanson.

Problems of Flight. It is interesting to learn that attention is being given by the technical designers of the Government to the accumulation of reliable data concerning the behaviour of aeroplanes under practical conditions. Becently experiments were made to determine the motion as the machine "takes off." Since an aeroplane, when being launched from the ■dock of a carrier ship, starts'from rest and acquires a. speed of 40 miles an hour witliin about five seconds, it is ob-

vious that tho speed measuring instrument must be capable of determining the instantaneous velocity, as the speed is not constant for an interval as small jis a second. The method adopted was to take a series of photographs in rapid succcsr moii by means of a high-speed cinematograph camera running about twenty times faster than tho ordinary "movie"' camera, so that as many as a thousand pictures wero in. tho few seconds which elapsed before the machine got away from the deck. Further, the rate of "revolution of tho propeller could be obtained, although making about 1000 turns per minute, as the duration of the exposure for a single picture was so short that the blades would *appear to be at rest momentarily. These pxperimonts illustrate the vast possibilities of the cinematograph camera in future research. Uses of X-rays. In a lecture on "X-rays and Their Uses," Professor W. S. "Lazarus-Bar-low gave many examples of how tho rays were being used for both diagnosis and the treatment of disease, as well as in industry. During the latter period of the war, the principal parts of aeroplanes wero examined in tliis way to see whether screws had split the struts. In steel-welding also X-rays were employed. French surgeons, had carried en difficult operations under Xra.vs, guided by tho shadow of the knife. "\Ve were still, however, only on the border lines of the subject, but already the medical attitude towards cancer patients, for example, had become far more hopeful than it was twenty years ago!' It might be possible in the future so to stimulate crops that they came into full growth quite early. Both in medicine and industry there was still a long way to travel. Under tho League of Nations tho medical minds of the world must bo joined together in progress for the futuro benefit of humanity.