RECENT RESEARCH

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 28

RECENT RESEARCH

MARCH OF SCIENCE

IN VARIOUS FIELDS

The bulletin of the Tin Research Council contains an account of the introduction of tins in place of. bottles for containing beer, writes the scientific correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." The tins occupy 64 per cent, less packing space and 55 per cent, less weight. They are more easily disposed of and are not used more than once. Their success depends on lining with materials which do not affect the flavour of the beer. Satisfactory- linings were discovered only through persistent research and experiment. For instance, brewers' pitch, which might have been expected to be satisfactory, absorbs the hop flavour. The tins have to be extra strong, as pressures of 751b per square inch are produced while the beer is being heated for pasteurisation. The lining now generally used is an enamel made out of synthetic resins .of the vinyl type. The American Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation made five hundred tons of vinyl resins in 1935, most of which was used for making enamel for lining beer-tins. Another sort of lining is made from wax. The cost of making beer-tins is at present about one penny. A Welsh brewery is using them in this country, and it is hoped that their use will assis*' the tinplate industry of South Wales. NEUTRONS AND MEDICINE. The discovery of the neutron has provided a new instrument for biological and medical research. Radium rays and X-rays have proved of value ia treating cancer and other diseases, and the possibilities of affecting the growth of living things by beams of neutrons are being energetically investigated. Professor E. O. Lawrence, of California, and his colleagues have been studying the effect of beams of neutrons on rats. They find that the neutrons are about ten times as effective as X-rays in. changing the condition of the blood in the rats. R. E. Zirkle and P. C. Aebersold have studied the retardation of the growth of wheat seedlings by beams of neutrons. They find that the retardation is about ten times that produced by beam's of X-rays under equivalent conditions. It seems that neutrons may be as much as ten times' as effective as X-rays in retarding certain types of growth. Further research will be- required to see whether they will retard malignant growths ten times more effectively than X-rays. Neutrons cz a medical instrument appear to. be promising. DOUBLE WINDOWS. The rapid increase in noise in modern life.is stimulating research in sound insulation. This problem is proving more difficult than might have been expected. It is reasonable to suppose that good insulation might easily be obtained by protection with some special material- which has.the property of not transmitting sound. Researches by J. E. R. Constable at the National Physical Laboratory are showing that the solution is not so simple A. partition for stopping sound tends to behave like a piston -which is lightly held around its edges. Its restatance to sounds falling on it is closely connected with its weight, it the piston, or partition, is heavy., it* resists the sound better than if it is light; There is a well-marked correla-tion-between the sound.insulation and the weight per.square- foot of single sheets of widely-varying material. This even when special attention has been %Zl°^TSt^l an American experimenter discovered that the flowering of wheat may be accelerated by nalisation, which means -bringinghe seeds into the condition of the spring state by artificial treatment.. Various hemicaV and physical methods .are known Treatment by "doses of daikness™ is one -of them.- Subtropical plants, such as maize, millet cotton, and the soya bean, are - delayed in their flowering when grown m fields in temperate regions with long summer days. -The' grain of-.these plan s s mixed with about one quarter of theu weight of water and kept in the daik at a temperature of about 100-degrees F forabout.a week. After.this treatment, the -plants will flower in long days and even in continuous light, and may' be cultivated successfully in regions with long summer days. Professor Blackman remarks that .this is a considerable achievement. GEOCHEMISTRY. One of the most striking applications of geochemistry has been made by A E Fersman and others, in the Kola Peninsula, in the Arctic regions of the USSR, adjacent to Finland. At a distant geological epoch the rocks of the district were molten. They cooled on the outside first, and a concentraion of solutions of various substances occurred in the central arefa. When, final solidification occurred a region about one hundred kilometres long and broad was left with a' concentration containing exceptionally high percentages of titanium, phosphorus, molybdenum, and other valuable minerals. The existence of these minerals in the Arctic wilderness was proved in 1929. Mining equipment was transported there by reindeer and construction was begun. A new railway and. a mining town with a population of fifty thousand have been built. Two million tons of ores, mainly containing phosphorus for fertilisers, were mined in 1934, and it is hoped to extend production to seven million tons by 1937.