HEADLINES of the Month Events of interest to Chemists, Chemical Engineers, and EXecutives--Reviewed
by the Editors
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fl AUGUST16. Egypt sells her entire 1950 output of 3,000,000 tons of manganese to U. S., director general of Egypt’s Department of Industry says.-NMiriam Moskowitz, charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with atom spy investigation, is released on bond of $25,000. fl AUQUST18. Ethyl Corp. says it will start construction immediately of new chemical plants near Houston, Tex., with an output capacity of 100,000,000Ib. of chemicals a year which will include metallic sodium, chlorine, ethyl chloride, and tetraethyllead.--Commerce Department puts export controls on small shipments to Iron Curtain countries and lightens controls over petroleum producb.--Morton Sobell, another alleged American member of Russian atom spy ring and an electronics and radar expert who worked on secret and top secret government contracts, is arrested at Laredo, Tex., on espionage charges after being deported from Mexico. --Commerce Department says caustic soda and soda ash will be placed under export controls effective September 1.
fl AUGUST20. Merck & Co. reduces price of cortisone from $95 to $50 a gram. fl AUGUST21. Enrico Fermi, Nobel prize-winning physicist, sues Government for $10,000,000 for using without payment a key atom bomb process invented by him.
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1 AUGUST 22. E. D. Crittenden, chief of research, Nitrogen Section, Solvay Process Division of Allied Chemical and Dye Corp., in address a t University of Maryland, says this country is in an excellent position on nitrogen and that there is no need to fear a shortage owing to synthetic methods of obtaining it.-First tooth powder, Dentwillin, containing penicillin is authorized for prescription sale after Paul B. Dunbar, Food and Drug Commissioner, says it reduced cavities by 55% during a clinical test with 400 school children.--Sanford Lawrence Simons, a 28year-old resea&h scientist at University of Denver, is jailed in Denver on charges he robbed the h s Alamos atomic project of plutonium. --Brookhaven National Laboratory reactor starts operation. fl AUGUST23. Julius Rosenberg and his wife plead not guilty in Federal Court to charges they had conspired to transmit atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.-NW. R. Jillson, former state geologist, says uranium-bearing ore has been found in Southern Casey County, Ky.. and that a party from Pittsburgh is surveying area. “Du Pont announces plans for eighth major expansion of its nylon manufacturing facilities since World War TI with an increase in floor space at its Martinsville, Va., plant by 100,000 sq. ft., making a total of 600,000 sq. ft.--International Minerals & Chemical Corp. purchases 39-acre tract in Fort Worth, Tex., as site for new $500,000 chemical fertilizer plant.-NU, S. standards for grades of frozen concentrated orange juice will become effective in 30 days. 7 AUGUST24. About 50 tons of critical molybdenum concentrate, worth $%5,000, haa slipped into hands of Soviet Union in contravention of U. S. export control regulations.--House Appropriations Committee rejects President Truman’s request for $475,000 to establish National Science Foundation. fl AUQUST25. Government cute use of new rubber for civilian products 13%starting September 1, but Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer says i t will still permit production of sufficient quantities of rubber products for normal civilian use.
fl AUGUST26. H. E. Humphreys, Jr., president U. S. Rubber Co., says company has plowed back more than $102,000,000 in profits since V-J Day to expand and modernize its plants and equipment.
fl AUQUST 27. British Government announces discovery of largest single deposit-possibly 1,000,000 tons-of uranium ore in British Isles.--E. H. Volwiler, preaidcnt of A.C.S. and head of Abbott Laboratories, announces creation nf a new division of the A.C.S.-the Division of High Polymer Chemistry-and that it will be headed by Carl S. Marvel, University of Illinois.--John S. Nicholas, Yale University, warns present number of U. S. mientists is adequate only “for peacetime needs” and that U. S. must treble its scientific manpower in order to maintain the “knowledge stockpile now absolutely necessary for national surv ival.”
7 AUQUST 28. House passes by voice vote legislation which would set up, in Department of Commerce, agency to distribute technological information to industry. --Westem Allied High Commission orders dissolution of I. G. Farbenindustries.--Eugene Holman, president Standard Oil Co. (N. J.), says oil industry is in excellent shape to meet requirements of a total war.-Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce says chemical exports in first quarter 1950 fell off as compared with same quarter in 1949.--General Services Administration sets up list of 11 critical materials and orders government agencies to conserve them; list embraces aluminum, cement, copper, lead, leather, lumber, paper, rubber (synthetic, natural, or in combination), steel, wool, and zinc.
7 AUQUST29. President Truman, through John R. Steelman, his assistant, urges Senator Kenneth McKellar, chairman of Senate Appropriations Committee, and his committee to consider favorably his request for funds to bring National Science Foundation into being. --Large-scale production of penicillin has been started in recently finished plant of Farbwerke Hoechst near Frankfort.--Allied High Commiasion announces U. 8. and Germany affirm reciprocal patent copyright laws effective in prewar days. 7 AUGUST30. President Truman aaks Congress to appropriate $139,800,000 to begin long-range plan for dispersal of Government to minimize effects of attack in atomic age.--Harold Hartley, in presidential address at meeting of British Association for Advancement of Science at Birmingham, England, suggests setting up a UN economic bureau to maintain an inventorylof world resources which would coordinate natural resources that are d i 5 tributed geographically in an accidental way.--Aluminum GO. of America dedicates its new $5,500,000 Vancouver, Wash., rod wire, and cable plant which has a capacity of 3,000,000 Ib monthly.N-Harry M. Crooks, Jr., Parke, Davis & Co., who was in charge of research group that synthesiied chloromycetin, leaves for London to establish his firm’s first research laboratory abroad where chloromycetin will be produced for countries comprising pound sterling areas. 7 AUGUST31. P. M. 8. Blackett, Manchester University, announces discovery of two new elementary particles in cosmic rays, “V” particles, at meeting of British h o c i a t i o n for Advancement of Science in Birmingham, England; says Carl D. Landeraon, California Institute of Technology, aided in work. 2183
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INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
SEPTEMBER 1. Senate kills proposal to suspend the Zcents-aIb. tariff on copper.--Ten rubber companies, outside tire division of industry, set up new corporation to reopen and operate government-owned $7,000,000 synthetic rubber plant in Louisville, Ky., under contract with Reconstruction Finanee Corp., to be knonn as Kentucky Synthetic Rubber Corp., with Thos. Robbins, Jr., president Hewitt Robbins, Inc., as president.-Eugene Brunner, research chemist for Shell Development Co., Los Angeles, is serving 6 months’ sentence for contempt because he refused t o tell Federal Judge Ben Harrison whether he belonged to Communist Party between 1937-39. SEPTEMBER 3. A.C.S. convenes for 118th national meeting in Chicago.--A.C.S. through a resolution adopted by its Board of Directors, calls upon President Truman to act at once to prevent a waste of scientific manpower in present emergency and invites other scientific organizations to help form committee to cooperate with Government in establishing program for training and use of scientific personnel.
7 SEPTEMBER 4. Council of the A.C.S. unanimously approves above resolution.--Reports from Australia reveal large deposits of radioactive ore believed to be uranium have been found near Katherine, 256 miles southeast of Darwin.--Hercules Powder Co. announces plans for erecting a $1,500,000 plant at Hattiesburg, Miss., for production of Toxaphene, a chlorinated camphene insecticide used in killing the boll weevil and other pests. 7 SEPTEMBER 5. A. E. Staley Manufacturing Co. completes construction of its $5,000,000 solvent extraction unit at Decaatur, Ill., which has a capacity for producing 800 tons of soybeans daily.
7 SEPTEMBER 6. E. H. Volwiler at Chicago meeting announces the following winners of awards administered by A.C.S : Garvan Medal, Katherine Burr Blodgett, General Electric Co.; Fritzsche Award of $1000 and gold medal, Edgar Lederer, Institut de Biologie Physico-Chemique, Paris; $1000 A.C.S. Award in Pure Chemistry, sponsorcd by Alpha Chi Sigma, to John C. Sheehan, MIT; $1000 Precision Scientific Co. Bward in Petroleum Chemistry, Louis Schmerling, Universal Oil Products Co., Chicago; $lo00 Fisher Award in Analytical Chemistry for 1951, Hobart H. Willard, University of Michigan; Borden Award in Chemistry of Milk, Thomas L. McMeekin, Eastern Regional Research Laboratory, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Philadelphia; 1951 Paill-Lewis Laboratories Award in Enzyme Chemietry, Arthur Kornberg, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Md.; $1000 Eli Lilly Co. Award in Biological Chemistry, John M. Buchanan, Tiniversity of Pennsylvania School of lIedicine’.--White House orders another increase in synthetic rubber production which Chairman Lyndon B. Johnson of Senate Armed Services Preparedness subcommittee says will boost production of general purpose synthetic rubber 80,000 tons above present 600,000-ton goal for 1951. Government, through its General Services Administrator, asks Congress for authority to help boost domestic production of aluminum.--Wildcat strikes force Wyandotte Chemical Corp. to shut down 3 more plants in Wyandotte, Mich., that produce soda ash.---E. H. Volwiler in an address at the Society’s meeting in Chicago proposes Congress revise draft law to assure best use of scimtists by keeping key scientists in industry, government, and in universities, that scientists in Armed Forces be used to highest degree in their primary fields of scientific education and training, and that outstanding science students be deferred by quota system to complete their training before being called into Armed Forces. --World production of natural rubber climbed in July to a record-high level of 167,500 long tons or 10,000 tons higher than in June and 17,500 tons above May, Rubber Study Group (London) says.--Scientists use radar bombardment and an atomic pile to produce new superaccurate Chsm. Enp.. Nswa, 28, 3208 (dept. 18, 1960).
Vol. 42, No. 10
standard on which all international measurements of length can be based, Kenneth B. Adams, Westinghouse Research Laboratories, and Kevin Burns, illlegheny Observatory, disclose and say measurement will be accurate to 1 part in 40,000,000.
T SEPTEMBER 7. Robert L. Clark, director of Manpower, Office of National Security Resources Board, asks A.C.S. and three other groups-National Research Council, American Institute of Physics, and the Engineers Joint Council-for recommendations in the development of “policies and methods which will bring about the most effective utilization of America’s highly trained scientists in the national effort.”--Farrington Daniels, chairman board of governors Brgonne National laboratory, at Chicago meeting of A.C.S. says Government should open field of atomic energy development to private industry in interest of peacetime applications.
1 SEPTEMBER 10. Secretary of Commerce Sawyer announces establishment of a National Production Authority headed by William H. Harrison, president International Telephone and Telegraph Co., of N. Y., to handle priorities, allocations, and inventory controls essential to mobilization needs. 9 SEPTEMBER 11. Senator John C. Stennis says he understands U. S. now has “450 or more full-grown atomic bombs,”--U. S.built caustic soda and chlorine plant increases production capacity of caustic soda in Indin almost 20’%.--United Mine Workers step up picketing of Solvay Process Division, Allied Chemical & Dye Corp. soda ash factory at Syracuse, N. Y . 7 SEPTEMBER 12. A.C.S. committee liaison with the Department of Defense, of which Ralph A. Conner, Rohm & Haas Co., ischairman, meets in Washington to implement action on the resolution passed by the Board of Directors September 3; committee, after considering the board resolution and also the invitation extended by SSRB, decided to meet again on September 26 for more detailed consideration of the NSRB proposal.-Sidney R‘einbaum, formerly a research engineer in secret jet propulsion laboratory, California Institute of Technology, previously convicted of perjury charges when he told an Army review board he had never been a member of the Communist Party branch at California Institute of Technology, is sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment.---Solvay Process Co. drops pension issue in 3-month-old strike at its Syracuse soda ash plant. 7 SEPTEMBER 13. Senate Appropriations Committee approves spending an additional $598,600,000 for stockpiling strategic and critical materials between now and next June 30. 7 SEPTEMBER 14. Tritium, one of the basic ingredients of the hydrogen bomb, is being produced constantly in upper atmosphere by cosmic rays bombarding earth from outer space, Research Institute of Temple University and the Institute of Nuclear Studies, University of Chicago, announce.--Dow Chemical announces procedure for voluntary allocation of magnesium which prohibits orders for magnesium over and above what company deems its customers’ requirements have been and will be. N-Abbott Laboratories starts construction of a $283,000 addition to its development laboratory in Chicago. Ti SEPTEMBER 15. Engineers Joint Council sets up 18-man board composed of three members from each of its member organizations-American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Mining & Metallurgical Engineers, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and American Institute of Chemical Engineersand three representatives from the American Society for Engineering Education to help the NSRB in solving manpower mobilization problems.-NDow Corning Corp., Midland, Mich., announces plans for manufacturing silicones in England.“ Reconstruction Finance Corp. orders all-out synthetic rubber production to raise GR-S general purpose synthetic to 760,000 tons a year, RFC rubber chief G. B. Hadlock states.
