THE DRAFT:
Hurting Chemistry Predictions just a few months ago that graduate student enrollments would decrease 50 to 70% as a result of the suspension of graduate student draft deferments have been realized, but only in part, according to a recent survey by the Scientific Manpower Commission. SMC queried the chairmen of 173 Ph.D.-granting chemistry departments to determine the number of first- and second-year graduate students who had actually entered the armed forces since die academic year began and the number who had been ordered for induction but whose induction dates were postponed. The 114 (65.9%) who replied reported that by June this year 16% of such students had either been drafted or had received orders for induction. This loss was in addition to that reported by an earlier U.S. Office of Education survey, which showed that full-time, first-year U.S. male graduate enrollments in chemistry fell to 3700 in the fall of 1968 from 3952 the previous year—a drop or 6.4%. Many respondents to the SMC survey complained that the questionnaire did not accurately measure the full loss of graduate students: • It did not account for those who had dropped out of school to seek jobs qualifying for occupational deferment, who had changed to fulltime teaching status, who had withdrawn from previously accepted graduate appointments, or whose local draft boards had promised induction notices during the summer. .· Severe losses had occurred even before the 1968 fall term began, and these losses should have been added to those recorded in the SMC survey. • Further losses expected during the summer may bring the total loss to between 25 and 60% of
U.S. male graduate chemistry students. • Many of these students will never return to their graduate studies. Several chemistry department chairmen said that diey were having difficulty finding enough qualified teaching assistants for next year, and a few had lost so many diat class schedules had to be rearranged. Losses were not spread evenly among schools or states. The percentage of chemistry students entering the armed forces ranged from 6.8% in two states to 27% or more in two others. Among individual schools having 60 or more full-time U.S. male graduate chemistry students, losses ranged from less than 4% in three universities to 25%- or more in four others. A few small departments reported losses in excess of 50%. SMC concludes that the full impact has not yet been felt, that many who escaped induction in 1968-69 will nevertheless be unable to go on to their Ph.D.'s unless draft rules are changed, and that the long-term effects upon the supply of trained scientists will be even worse than the current figures seem to indicate.
POLLUTION:
Ozone Days from School If you go jogging, please put on your scuba tank before you go—especially if you live in Los Angeles County. The smog in the City-of-the-Angels must be getting worse because effective early this month, 2 million students through the high school level in Los Angeles County will be excused from "strenuous indoor and outdoor activities . . . when the forecast concentration of ozone in the atmosphere reaches 0.35 p.p.m. . . . because smog is an increasing health hazard which may seriously affect the lungs of young people." The Air Pollution Control District (APCD) has implemented the
resolution (cited, in part, above) adopted by the Los Angeles County Medical Association. Ozone was picked as the most typical characteristic of the country's air pollution and is considered a toxic constituent of photochemical smog, APCD chief deputy Robert L. Chass says. "Detailed forecasts will be made 24. to 32 hours in advance. Our meteorologists are exceptionally accurate; the deviation of all forecasts made in 1968 was less than 0.05 p.p.m.," he indicates. The forecasts have been made daily in APCD's nine air monitoring areas since May 1966. Whenever ozone levels are forecast to reach 0.35 p.p.m., "school smog warnings" will be issued for the affected areas and broadcast by the news media. The "school smog warnings" are most likely in October, August, September, and July. The months are listed according to decreasing average annual number of 0.35-p.p.m. or greater ozone days recorded since 1961. There is an average of 21 days a year when the ozone level reaches 0.35 p.p.m. or greater in the Los Angeles basin. The action by Los Angeles' APCD, which was recommended unanimously by the county medical association, is sure to be another missile in the cannons of the prophets of doom. However, it is true that an organism can not live in its own waste. If the lungs of young people can be seriously affected by the current amount of pollution, when will the point be reached when everyone will have to refrain from strenuous activity? Perhaps the issue will become a bargaining point in union contracts where workers do strenuous work. Also, other methods besides jogging will have to be found to keep in shape. Jogging might prove to be hazardous to your health—at least on certain days.
MEDICINE:
Graduate chemistry classes lose 16% of male students to selective service during their first and second years Number enrolled, fall 1968
Entered service poned to term end Induction postby June 1969 Number Per cent Number Per cent
First year Second year First and second year
10 C&EN JULY 14, 1969
1770 2054 3824
208 122 330
11.8 6.0 8.6
127 155 282
7.2 7.6 7.4
Portable Kidney From a knowledge of adhesives and potting compounds gained in solving problems for high-energy physics experiments, Argonne's Finley W. Markley—working on a concept put forth by Dr. A. R. Levander of Hines Hospital and Loyola University—has designed a small, low-cost artificial kidney that could eventually allow the 50,000 Americans stricken with irreversible kidney failure to purify their blood daily in their own homes. Present "kidneys" or dialyzers are so large and difficult to operate that most patients must be treated in hospitals where trained medical person-
