MAGNETISM AND LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 71, 21 September 1936, Page 10

MAGNETISM AND LIFE

WORK OF A SCIENTIST

GROWTH RETARDED V

With the . exception of ■ Dr. Grace Kimball's paper on the effect of magnetism on life it cannot be said that anything startling or new came out of the meeting at Rochester of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says the "New York Times." ■ Dr. Emmanuel M. Josephson, of New York, reaffirmed his conviction, uttered a year ago, that he had successfully treated glaucoma, a painful disease of the eyes which results in blindness, with the hormone of the .adrenal cortex and did his best to overcome the scepticism of his critics, chief of whom is Dr. Alan C, Woods, of Johns Hopkins. Lieutenant O. S. Reading, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, told how much unrecorded property had been discovered by aeroplane photography in tax equalisation surveys made in fourteen Connecticut cities. Dr. C. G. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, reiterated his conviction that the weather could be forecast two weeks in advance on the basis of day-to-day measurements of the sun's heat, pleaded once more for the creation of a sufficient number of observatories to make the measurements, and suggested that sounding balloons capable of floating to an altitude of twenty miles be used to radio back automatically the information needed. RESULTS WITH BALLOONS. Dr. Karl Q. Lange lent colour to this possibility by describing his wellknown results in devising and using just such balloons and automatic radio apparatus to reduce the high cost of exploring the upper air. / Dr. Charles Camsel, Canadian Deputy Minister of Mines,' reported only failure in recounting the efforts of an aeroplane expedition that set out last August to verify a legend of a "tropical valley" in, North-west Canada.' Drs. T. R. Wilkins and W. M. Ray ton, of the University of Rochester, supplied a new estimate of the age, of the earth—2,soo,ooo,ooo . years—which increases that previously accepted by 500,000,000 and removes some of the doubt that geologists and physicists have, entertained. The new estimate is based on the decay period of actinouranium, one of eight kinds of uranium which disintegrate at known rates into sixteen different kinds of lead. : • And Dr. R. J. Anderson, of Yale, told once more of his chemical analysis of tuberculosis germs and of the complex sugars, fatty acids, and a new alcohol that he had found in them, all constituting knowledge that will some day be supplied in more effectively combating tuberculosis. DR. KIMBALL'S FINDING. Returning to Dr. Grace Kimball and her work on the effect of magnetism on life, biologists will insist that her findings be confirmed. She exposed young yeast cells to the influence of a permanent horseshoe magnet. Lo, the budding was retarded. Growth was not interrupted when the yeast was shielded by iron but definitely slowed down when such non-magnetic materials as glass, zinc, or paraffin were interposed. The natural inclination of any physicist is to lift a sceptical eyebrow at all this, despite the apparent care to control the experiments. He would naturally look for free magnetic metals in the growths subjected to test. The bio-chemist will assure him that they are chemically combined and therefore beyond the reach of any magnet. Dr. Kimball's results must be attributed to something other than mere magnetism. If her conclusion is confirmed she must go down in history with Galvani, Volta, and Franklin. Nino persons were killed recently by inhaling poisonous gas fumes from a fire which broke out in a mine near Douquoin, Illinois