located at the central FWPCA office in Washington, is a mathematical model of the entire Potomac Basin from its weblike source in the Appalachians to its merger with Chesapeake Bay 250 miles downstream. The computer is supposed to predict from data received how such river conditions as drought, waste loads, floods, and abatement measures combine to affect and determine future water quality. While the river's natural beauty campaign is classed by government conservationists as a single effort,
Switchman Quigley New system, new agency
FWPCA regards it as part of an overall Chesapeake Bay-Susquehanna River Basins Project. These programs consist of pollution studies and overall abatement plans for 18 drainage areas covering the entire contiguous U.S. What happens to FWPCA's plans for the 18 basins awaits the office's transfer from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to the Department of the Interior. The move takes place automatically May 11 unless Congress objects.
nation's current science problems (C&EN, April 25, page 19). Dr. Frederick Seitz, president of the academy, fears that NSF support of applied research at academic institutions "may be the thin edge of the wedge which could ultimately result in pressures to support mission oriented work at the expense of basic research." He believes that there are many reasons why the academic and industrial communities should come closer together, should interact more freely, and should cooperate more effectively with one another to their mutual advantage. But there are also good reasons why at least one government agency should support research which lies outside the missions of other agencies. "I think I speak for a very major segment of the scientific community in saying that whatever other duties NSF may be assigned, it should be obligated to give first priority to the support of frontier scientific research which will maintain our national strength in understanding the world of nature," Dr. Seitz says. Dr. Eric Walker, chairman of the National Science Board (NSF's governing body), supports authority for NSF to finance applied research "on balance," but fears that serious problems could arise unless the operation is handled properly. For example, in the future Congress may decide to cut spending for basic research and put more money into research which promises practical advantages. Or the foundation may one day find itself obliged to defend parts of its basic research program in terms of their relationships to the applied programs. The National Science Board suggests several ways to avoid these and similar problems:
Applied research tricky at NSF Scientists support a proposal to permit the National Science Foundation to support applied research, but are uneasy that this authority, if misused, could undermine the basic purpose of the foundation. This view was expressed by spokesmen for the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Board as House committee hearings continued on H.R. 13696. The bill, introduced by Rep. Emilio Q. Daddario (D.-Conn.), is designed to make NSF more responsive to the 30 C&EN MAY 2, 1966
NAS President Seitz The thin end of the wedge
• Remove NSF research from competition with the missions of other agencies. • Keep the foundation from moving from "applied research" to "development." • Ensure that NSF-supported applied research seeks basic solutions to broad problems rather than specific solutions to specific and unique problems. According to the National Science Board, one way to determine the appropriateness of NSF support might be: "Whenever applied research supported by the foundation has been sufficiently successful as to permit undertaking a substantial development or operations program, the latter should become the responsibility of some federal agency with an appropriate mission."
Heart pump used nylon velour Nylon velour may provide one solution to the blood-clotting problem encountered with artificial internal organs. The velour, a velvetlike surface of uncut pile loops, was used to cover plastic surfaces in contact with blood in the left ventricular bypass pump in the heart of Marcel DeRudder. The 65-year-old DeRudder died in Methodist Hospital in Houston (five days after heart surgery) of a ruptured left lung, a cause apparently unrelated to the artificial heart. The velour coating overcomes blood clotting caused by the deposition of blood protein on surfaces of plastics. The protein deposits on surfaces of all plastics, including polymethyl methacrylate, polyurethanes, and silicone rubbers, according to Dr. Domingo Liotta of Baylor University College of Medicine and his associates. After the build-up of a film of blood protein, or fibrin, becomes large enough to be carried off by flowing blood, it breaks up, collects at valves, and embolizes (forms a block) in the arterial system. Among other possible ways to make plastics safe for use as artificial internal organs is a method of chemically bonding heparin to plastic surfaces. The technique (C&EN, April 18, page 56) promises to make flexible materials compatible with blood. Nylon velour, in effect, holds the fibrin and helps to present a smooth surface to the flowing blood. Briefly, the mechanism begins with fibrin depositing on the wall and in the interstices of the velour soon after blood contacts the pump components and tubes. The resulting internal fibrin is so strong and complete that chances of dissection and embolization are negligible, members of the Houston medi-
