THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
frames and makes for efficient cooling. Foxboro will recommend air conditioning for the unit, but tests have included operation from 40° to 120° F. In designing the system, Foxboro engineers first established application and software requirements. Software and hardware design then proceeded concurrently. Fox 1 includes: • A central processing unit with word size of 24 bits plus parity, a core memory cycle time of 960 nanoseconds, core memory of 16,384, 24,576, and 32,768 words, and drum memory of various capacities. Hardware provides 24 levels of hardware interrupts and 384 points of process interrupt. • A software system that provides simultaneous performance of foreground (control) and background (programing and supervisory) functions. The system has FORTRAN IV capability. Programs include IMP AC, a fill-in-the-blanks system for monitoring, control, and data base generation, and MAX, a plant-language macroprocessor enabling a process engineer to construct his own symbolic process-oriented language for particular applications. • A cathode-ray-tube-based operator's console, fully supported by software, having both alphanumeric and graphic capabilities. As a cost bench mark for FOX 1, Foxboro cites $150,000 for a minimal system to support the software, although a general cost is difficult to establish because applications and configurations are so varied. Deliveries will begin no later than January 1972, Mr. Thistle says. First display of a working system will be in Houston at the 6th Petrochemical and Refining Exposition, sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, beginning March 1.
THE MOON:
Agree to Disagree Understanding of the moon's properties and history increased greatly during the past year, but still not much is known because the base line of knowledge was almost zero. In this way one of the principal investigators of lunar material explained the controversies among scientists concerning the moon at the Second Lunar Science Conference held in Houston, Tex., last week. Controversy and some general agreements on the moon's history, internal condition, and composition come from the various data developed in part from analyses and other tests of lunar samples brought back by Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 astronauts. 10 C&EN JAN. 18, 1971
Some other data have come from seismic, solar wind, and other experiments. Although there is general agreement in several areas of moon properties and condition, the greatest agreement is that scientists' appetites are increasingly whetted for more information. They want more and varied moon samples, more experiments, and more physical exploration. This excitement has developed during the past year of more leisurely study than previously and from the questions which more detailed results suggest. Such detailed studies have led to conclusions that the chemical composition of the two sets of lunar samples are similar. However, the compositions are different enough to suggest that the sampled material reached its present state by geochemical or other processes special to each site, says Dr. George H. Morrison of Cornell University. Part of the reason for the similarity is that both Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 landing sites are in lowland areas of maria of the moon. During the past year while geochemists and geophysicists were having a field day, organic and biochemists faced more trying times in their work. No positive information has yet been obtained that compounds indicative of life—nucleic acids, certain hydrocarbons, amino acids, and porphyrins—have been detected even at concentrations of parts per billion, says Dr. Geoffrey Eglinton of the University of Bristol, England. In fact, he calls the Apollo 12 material the "cleanest stuff in terms of organic material . . . that you can find anywhere." It contains less organic material than samples of melted arctic snow or desert sands, and is cleaner than most vacuum systems made and maintained on earth, he says. The chemists' work in the parts-per-billion range for organics showed the significant improvement in sample handling techniques made at NASA's Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center between the two successful moon landing missions. It's been impossible, too, say some of the investigators, to get anything to grow from lunar samples. One Apollo 11 sample has even shown peculiar bactericidal properties, says Dr. Gerald R. Taylor of MSC. Higher than average concentrations of scandium and nickel in the particular Apollo 11 core sample suggests the bactericidal activity could be similar to typical heavy metal bactericidal action. However, Dr. Taylor doesn't believe the presence of scandium at a concentration of 28% more than average and nickel at 14% more than average are a great enough difference to account for the activity.
PENSION PLAN:
Other Sponsors Representatives of 20 technical and professional societies met last week at ACS headquarters in Washington, D.C., with officers and trustees of PFP—the corporation set up to operate the ACS-sponsored professionwide pension plan. At the orientation meeting, officers of PFP (Pensions for Professionals, Inc.) reported on the plan's progress and explained how interested societies could join ACS in sponsoring the plan through a stock purchase-loan pledge arrangement leading to seats on PFP's board of trustees. Six representatives of ACS have already been elected to the 21-member board (C&EN, Dec. 21, 1970, page 12); the other 15 members will be elected by existing board members from representatives of other societies which purchase a minimum of $5000 in PFP stock and agree to pledge a loan to PFP equivalent in cash value to their stock purchase. PFP stock will be issued by the corporation at $1000 per share. Maximum purchase will be hrnited to $50,000 with an equivalent loan pledge. PFP hopes it will not be necessary to call for pledged loans, but formulated the loan contingency to assure PFP's future financial stability. Bids to manage PFP's pension plan have been received from nine of the 20 insurance and investment plan carriers that have been contacted so far, according to David A. H. Roethel, vice president of PFP and manager of professional relations for ACS. PFP trustees are in the process of reviewing bids and meeting with carriers. The carrier selected will be announced during the ACS national meeting in Los Angeles in March. Representatives of about 10 societies expressed interest in the stock purchase plan arrangement outlined at the orientation meeting. John H. Nair, representing the American Institute of Chemists, announced during the meeting AIC's willingness to participate in the stock-pledge arrangement. Copies of PFP's bylaws were distributed at the meeting together with specifications explaining the basic terms of the pension plan which potential carriers were requested to use in preparing their bids. It is generally acknowledged by PFP officials that the plan will not be "portable" in the commonly accepted sense until it is readily available through most industrial employers of professionals. An important feature spelled out in the P F F s model plan, however, requested carriers to furnish a mechanism for permitting persons to enroll in the plan on an individual basis.
