"ALL
Architects of Life
THAT I am and all that I hope to be, [owe to my choice of vitagens." may shortly become a technically correct appraisal of man's existence on this planet. For we now know that in addition to governing our growth and safeguarding our lives against the ravages of nutritional disease, these elements are also related in some definite way to our progress in time toward new
life forms. Vitagens are the vitamins, the honnones. the minerals. the amino acids, the fatty acids-all those physiological and dietary factors whose presence in our diet and internal secretions the nutritionists and endocrinologists have been telling the world about these past few years. Convincing evidence has been brought forth that the hormones are in a large degree responsible for the development of new species. Plant and animal mutations are being carried out successfully in the biological genetics laboratories. In the plant world, these agents are being used to induce the development of "sports," the new forms which are the basis of selection and crossbreeding in modern horticulture. Drs. C. C. Gordon and J. H. Sang of Aberdeen University recently showed that overdoses of the B complex vitamin niacin cause fruit flies born without feelers and antennae to produce normal progeny during their own lifetimes, though these progeny in turn bring forth the original defective strain. No clearer proof is to be had that diet and evolution are closely related. Popular writers have gone overboard on the contributions made by the vitamins to the quest of &ience for a kind of Superman, the comic strip delight of children and adults. But what if we were soon to hold in our hands the keys which ,",auld enable these scientists to produce in a few generations a real supermana superior thinking and working animal resistant alike to the blights of disease and recurrent wars? It is just possible that one last discovery iu the nutrition field will just tip the scales of embryonic and evolutionary life enough to make this dream come true. In fact, it is quite likely that if we were able to properly evaluate and coordinate the sum total of man's present knOwledge on the subject, a human life form could be produced which would be vastly superior to our present vestments of mind and flesh. Take the recent work on biotin as crowning example of what the future holds for us in this connection. It was only last October that a group of biochemists headed by Dr. Vincent du Vigneaud succeeded in picturing the comple.x molecular structure of this vitamin. Here was an achievement far transcending in importance the architecting of the more-impressive-appcaring Boulder Dam. From this elaborate chemical blueprint the chemists of Merck & Company have now built this elusive substance
synthetically. In its ultimate importance to the life and wellbeing of man this may well rank as one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of our time. Biotin has long been locked up in impure form and variable amount in the v_ast treasure house of the vitamin B complex. Its isolation from natural materials was tedious and difficult, the amounts so obtained in the laboratory seemed trifling and prohibitive in cost for all but the most important technical research. With the synthesis of biotin in pure form, costs are coming down and general work with it has become possible. For while it is true that a very minute amount of this potent material is enough for the average experimenter, its cost even so has been many times greater than that of radium. No living thing-whether microbe, mouse, or man--can exist without biotin. It is indispensable to all growth, good and bad, and the key to cell proliferation appears to lie in our ability to give it at one point while withholding it at another. Nowhere is this more important than in the control of cancer-next to war, man's greatest scourge. \Vithout biotin, tumors will not grow. When we learn how to deprive living cancer tissue of the excess biotin needed for its inordinate growth while at the same time providing sufficient to the body for its normal needs, we shall have conquered this cruelest murderer of mankind. The world has come a long way from the days of Liebig and Pasteur who 60 years ago were wrangling over the conditions needed for growth. One claimed that an organic substance of some kind was essential; the other took the contrary position. E. Wildiers of Louvain settled the controversy once and for all by proving that Liebig was right, that a mysterious "bios" was present as a governing agency of growth in all living tissue. And Dr. Fritz Kogel supplied a more concrete answer in the isolation of tiny crystals so small that one part in four hundred billion stimulated the growth of yeast. He gave the name to this substance: biotin. It turned out to be one of the B complex "unknowns." Thus the recent elucidation of the molecular structure of biotin and its successful laboratory synthesis by Merck are the culmination of six decades of continuous search for the catalyst of the life processes. It is still too soon to evaluate its place in commercial dietetics, since it is at once life's boon and curse. But at least we have found it. It can be manufactured at will for the experimenter to work with cautiously by the accepted methods of check and dOUble-check. Its controlled employment in the diet of plant, animal, and man may become the dominant factor in the preservation of health, the prolonging of life, the increasing of our productive capacity, and the shaping of our evolutionary destiny. -Reprinted from Food Jfaterials and Equipment, May 29, 1943
One oj the leadingJactors in the industrial utility oj brass is its unusually high ductility. This quality is determined by the t>·pe oj crystalline stru;~tu.re. The so-called alpha brasses, those containing more than about 63 per cent copper, owe their exceptional ductility to the ability of the crystals tojlow or stretch under load to a remarkable degree. A new gluing process UJhich makes it possible to tran.'iforln surplu,s lum.ber into marketable stock at low cost is known as U spot welding." Boards are joined together edge to edge by setting glue only in spots along the joint, with high frequency radio waves used to set the spots.-Loucks
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