VOL. 5, NO. 9
CHEMICAL DIGEST
1183
Photographic prints in natural colors are still the hobby of the highly skilled specialist, pmaration of advertising.illustrations but their commercial application is limited to the ~. and a few other purposes that warrant the appreciable expense now involved. With a simple and practical colored film available we may soon see the colored movie and the colored print produced a t a cost comparable with the black and white approximation with which we must now be contented. ~
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M. W. G .
Experimental College - Completes First Year. The uniaue experimental college a t the University of Wisconsin, which is being closely watched by educators, has completed its first year, and the results are promising, accordinx to Prof. Alexander Meiklejohn, its chairman. Prof. Meiklejohn, who spoke a t the University of Chicago, said that the 120 freshmen who set out to spend an entire college year studying the golden age of Athenian civilization were bewildered a t the start by the amount of freedom given them and the degree of self-reliance they were expected t o display. Most of the students, however, finished the year with enthusiasm and a real capacity for work. Only nine of the freshmen dropped out. No conclusion as t o the success of the experiment can be drawn until the second year of the course is completed, Prof. Meiklejohn emphasized. It is understood that the sophomore course will focus upon the development of modern civilization in some country of Europe or America. Just as the Greek wurse was limited to the fifth century B.C., so the modern study would be limited t o the past century. The experimental college has no classroom work and no lectures. The freshmen who elcrtrd the course lived in a scparrte dormitory with thc I1 teachers ol their fncultg. The pn,fescnrc n.cre not rhown for special tr:i~ninl:in classical lines, and they hive done approximately the same reading as their students.-Science Service Chicken Tumor May Be Caused by Enzyme. A further step toward the eradication of cancer may result from recent experiments a t the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research by Dr James B. Murphy, 0. M. Helmer, and Ernest Sturm. These investigators have reported t o the technical magazine, Scieme, that the substance that causes chicken tumors is very like the enzymes, which in yeast, for instance, decompose sugar in alcoholic fermentation, and in certain juices of the stomach and intestines cause digestion of food. Chicken tumors, or sarwmas, are not the same as human cancer, but they are enough alike to be good material for experimentation. If scientists can find the enact nature of the substances that cause cancer, they may soon find the cure for this disease. Enzymes are known to be substances which, without undergoing change themselves, cause changes in the structure and nature of other substances. This enzyme-like nature of the cancer principle probably speeds up the action by which the cells undergo the change from a normal body cell to a cancerous one. I n the experiments just reported, the investigators were able to treat proteins abtained from chicken tumors so that two parts, one a precipitate of material like mucus, and the other a fluid, resulted. The precipitate was found t o be the agent that caused tumors when injected into chickens. This precipitate is composed of proteins, although not the same form of proteins contained in many foods.-Science Service
