News of the Week
RECESSION BEARS DOWN ON O.S. CHEMICALS Surprise, disappointment, and then dismay. That's roughly how the U.S. chemical industry has reacted to business life since June. It was bad enough for a while that a widely expected fresh wind didn't gather in their markets (C&EN, Sept. 28, page 8). Now they know the prospect is much worse. "Yes, it's a recession. The fourth quarter is a disaster," sums up one consultant deep in basic chemicals on the Gulf Coast. Perhaps not quite a disaster, but bad enough. The overall feeling now is that chemical business volume is down 5 to 10% from its none-too-good position in the summer. That's not a rip-roaring recession like the spring of 1980. But it is still way off the expected pace for the second half of 1981. At his press conference last week in Washington, Reagan guessed that recovery "will take place in the first half of 1982." That's also a common estimate of chemical business people contacted by C&EN. But they are holding out much less hope now for 1982 than they did before. Some predictions for 1982, for example in the leading aromatic benzene, are now flat. In ethylene, the leading basic olefin, the production shortfall from initial predictions will be worse than in benzene. First predictions of 31
billion lb production for 1981 have been revised down to 28 billion. Ethylene, like nearly the whole production chain stemming from it, also has price problems. Ethylene's list price was 28 cents a lb earlier in 1981. The actual selling price was about a cent and a half lower. Now the average selling price is about 24.5 cents, 12% below the old list price. For a product as big as ethylene, such a price drop represents a severe loss of income. Over a year, a 12% price drop cuts the value of ethylene production about $750 million. Profits disappear. These forecasts could get worse. The first hard measures of U.S. manufacturing for the fourth quarter show a rapidly deteriorating situation. Since other manufacturing is by far the biggest customer for chemicals, chemicals will be hurt too. Specifically, the October survey of the National Association of Purchasing Management finds the economic decline moving even faster than it did in September. In the survey's basic business barometer, production and new orders, the October data show the worst incidence of declines in more than a year. Employment also was much lower. Some bellwether chemicals already show such volume drops in official data. Shipments of one leading indicator group, synthetic fibers, were
Production, new orders are declining rapidly Survey responses, % of total 40 • Worse
• Better
^ _
Sffî
30
20
10
0
ié.~> Aug
Sept Production
Oct
Aug
Sept New orders
Note: Monthly survey of NAPM members. Source: National Association of Purchasing Management
8
C&EN Nov. 16, 1981
Oct
Shipments of majoi• fibers have dropped 6 % since June Aug
July
June
Yarn, monofilament 254.8 122.4 Nylon Polyester 132.4
262.8 126.3 136.5
253.1 121.6 131.5
272.8 136.2 136.6
Staple Nylon Polyester Acrylic TOTAL
345.5 52.8 232.9 59.8 608.3
326.9 62.2 212.8 51.9 580.0
341.2 69.2 211.9 60.1 614.0
Millions of lb
Sept
322.6 44.9 223.4 54.3 577.4
Source: Textile Economics Bureau
down 6% in September from June. This is particularly ominous, since September normally brings a seasonal bounce for fibers. The hints from fibers probably will be verified by several months of declining figures for other chemicals. Chemical business people hope that President Reagan is as correct in foretelling recovery in 1982 as he is in calling the current recession. D
NAS study finds peer review process random The careers of basic researchers usually hinge on the so-called peer review process—the system by which research proposals are judged for funding or rejection by groups of scientists, or peers. Five years ago, Congress directed the National Science Foundation to study flaws in the process. NSF asked the National Academy of Sciences to do the study and last week it was finished. Half the study—carried out by sociologist brothers Jonathan R. Cole of Columbia University and Stephen Cole of the State University of New York, Stony Brook—was done three years ago. It found little bias by peers against supplicants. The second half of the study tried to assess how well one group of peers compares with another set in judging the same proposal. What this review of peer review finds is that when it comes to who decides to give whom what, one might as well toss a coin, roll the dice, or draw lots. There is no guarantee that
one group of peers will treat the same applications the same as another group of peers. The results were gen erally uniform for the three fields taken as the samples: chemical dy namics, economics, and solid-state physics. Randomness, say the Coles, is perfectly kosher and is to be expected as long as the research proposals are good, the peers are distinguished, and the granting officers use good judg ment. The granting officers are the final arbiters but they need what might be called "informed subjec tivity." The randomness wasn't totally pervasive but it was still rather high. Fully 25 to 30% of proposals turned down by one panel were accepted by a different group of peers. Moreover, the Coles find that keeping the iden tities of applicants unknown had no influence on approval or disapproval. "We removed title pages, lists of ref erences, budgets, references in the text to past work of the principal in vestigators, and identifying remarks or comments in the proposals," the Coles say in the report. Even with identities concealed, many of the re viewers knew who was submitting the proposal. In its commentary, the NAS panel says the blinding of proposals "is both impractical and ill ad vised." Stephen Cole says that although the five-year study is now completed, many more questions need answering. Among them is the rhetoric used in writing proposals. "Many proposals don't really correspond to the way science is being done," he says. Usu ally a year or more passes between submission and approval. In the in tervening time, the researcher may find that his or her ideas proposed are either wrong or unproductive. "What funding competition thus becomes is an essay-writing contest whereby grant-getting experts know how to make a proposal sound good." D
Manipulate cells act normally back in mice The prospects for using mouse teratocarcinoma cells, a type of cancer cell, as a vehicle for manipulating genes that then can be put back into living mice to study their genetics look better than ever. Beatrice Mintz and her colleague Timothy A. Stewart at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia now have developed a type of teratocarcinoma, designated METT-1, that
meets the criteria necessary for suc cessful manipulations [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 78, 6314 (1981)]. Thus, such cells have a normal-appearing set of chromosomes, are stable, and can develop in vitro into differen tiated (such as might be found in normal body tissues) cell types. But, more important, these cells can be transplanted into mouse embryos where the cells develop into normal tissues in mature mice. Moreover, the genetic traits in such cells are trans mitted through the germ lines of mice into their offspring. The METT-1 cells thus can "bridge the gap" between in-vitro growth and manipulation of cells and in-vivo cell differentiation and transmission across generations of animals. Mintz and Stewart note, "This is the necessary preamble for engineering new mouse strains to be used as probes of developmental regulation or as models of human ge netic diseases." Until now, researchers have had to depend on finding natural variants in mice growing in the wild to establish
their genetics. Though a great deal of information has been established about this mammalian species, which serves in so many capacities as a metabolic model for man, much of it is descriptive and lacking in molecu lar detail. In a separate development, re cently reported successful transfers of genes from rabbits into mice (C&EN, Sept. 14, page 8) now have been con firmed by Franklin Constantini and Elizabeth Lacy, who are in the de partment of zoology at the University of Oxford in England. "The general pattern is what's im portant," says chemist Thomas E. Wagner of Ohio University, whose success at moving β-globin genes was announced two months ago. "The general trend is valid; it's possible to insert foreign genes into embryos and carry them into germ lines of mice." Such transferred genes also seem to work, at least in some cases. These independent studies of mice could very rapidly make this species into a well-developed model for mammalian genetics. D
Corning and Kroger turn /hey to yeast Corning Glass Works and Kroger Co., the Cincinnati-based supermarket chain, are planning a joint venture to turn whey into, among other things, bakers' yeast. According to the two companies, it will be the first com mercial venture of its kind. The project will combine Corning-developed immobilized enzyme technology with Kroger-developed fermentation technology. Corning and Kroger intend to build a 35,000-sq-ft plant in Winchester, Ky., near Lexington. Completion is set for 1983. The companies won't reveal the expected cost of the ven ture. At first, the plant will convert whey from Kroger's dairies into bak ers' yeast, supplying about 60% of the yeast needed for nine Kroger bak eries. It also will produce syrups and whey protein concentrate that Kroger will use in other food processing ac tivities. Later, it's expected, the plant also will process whey from other dairies and sell products to other manufacturers. The two companies note that the plant, in addition to making useful products, also will point the way to solving a troublesome disposal prob lem for the dairy industry. U.S. dairies turn out about 30 billion lb of whey a year as a by-product of cheesemaking. At present, only about half the whey is used; the rest is
mostly dumped into sewers. The wa tery liquid contains dilute concen trations of lactose, proteins, and minerals. It isn't toxic, but, because it can put a sizable and expensive bur den on sewage treatment systems, dairies are under pressure to find something else to do with it. In the Corning-Kroger project,
Corning to enter enzymes business Corning Glass Works has been active in biotechnology research since the early 1960's. At that time, its scientists dis covered a way to "immobilize" (and thus conserve) enzymes by physically and chemically binding them to glass or ceramic substrates without destroying their activity. So far Corning has been buying its enzymes from commercial suppliers. However, it intends to go into the en zyme business for itself. It recently bought Rohm & Haas' fermentation en zyme business, and it plans to build its own enzyme plant "within the next several years." Until that happens, Rohm & Haas will produce enzymes for Coming under contract. Coming expects that making its own enzymes will "strengthen its position in the bur geoning biotechnology market."
Nov. 16, 1981 C&EN
9
