NEWS SCRIPTS The billiard ball—father of the plastics industry
KENITE DIATOMITE A different breed of "-ites" Kenite Diatomite cannot boast that it is not related to other diatomites — they are all related. But, regular users find, in the tiny microscopic differences, enough advantage to justify specifying Kenite for:
• FILTERAIDS, • MINERAL AIDS or • EXTENDERS from our processing plant at Quincy, Washington. They just order the indicated grade from Kenite and count on consistent good performance. W e think it is worth your giving it a trial. As a first step, ask for the Kenite Brochure and any other spe cial information on the use of diat-· omite in your industry.
KENITE φ Μ CORPORATION Overhill Building, Scarsdale, N.Y. 10583 Tel. 914 SC 3-8110
YE KEN KENITE 70 C&EN APRK. 29, 1968
Atlas Chemical Industries' Chemmuni qué for April 2 discloses the fact that 1968 A.D. is the 100th anniversary of the plastics industry in America. Chemmuniqué can't figure out what to call it, however, as in silver anniversary, golden anniversary, and so forth, since "nobody's memory books and other such sentimental claptrap ran past 75 years." The best "opinion" is that the 100th is the platinum anniversary, but Chemmuniqué is still searching. Anyway, a printer by the name of John Wesley Hyatt, the son of a blacksmith, was sitting under a chestnut tree one day some 100 years ago coveting a $10,000 prize that had been offered to the first person who could develop a substitute for the ivory then used to make billiard balls. Ivory was in short supply and thus expensive. By around 1868, inventor Hyatt had found that he could mix camphor (from Formosa), nitrocellulose (developed by Christian Freiderich Schonbein), and various solvents and, when the mixture dried, could mold it into all kinds of shapes, including billiard balls. Among other products that the stuff went into: piano keys, celluloid collars, dice, combs, and numerous fires.
Crawfish peeler could be boon to Louisiana Scientists Richard T. Lovell and Wiley Poole at Louisiana State University have been working hard to put the crawfish industry in Louisiana on a sound basis—with little help from the crawfish themselves—one of the chief means to this end being a mechanical crawfish peeler. The two LSU men have now completed a study—"Development of a Crawfish Processing Industry in Louisiana." The American Society of Agricultural Engineers got a report on the work at its southwest region meeting earlier this month. The first model of the crawfish peeler on the market will be semiautomatic. It should cut by at least 50% the cost of processing crawfish, which now runs about 34 cents a pound. One operator and two helpers ought to be able to turn out 40 to 60 pounds of peeled crawfish per hour with the machine. Lovell and Poole think that a fully automatic machine, which they hope to develop, would cut the processing cost to about 10 cents per pound of crawfish.
Dr. Lovell's effort also includes a detailed study of the nutritional and biochemical aspects of the crawfish, which appears to be almost all protein and less than 1% fat. The men on the job aren't yet clear on the quality of crawfish protein, but they expect it to be very like that of shrimp.
Poison ivy, oak, and sumac hit seven out of 10 Whoever wants to learn about poison ivy, oak, and sumac can find out by getting a free single copy of "Poison Ivy, Oak, and Sumac," Public Health Service Publication No. 1723, from the information office, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Md. 20014. The compound in poison ivy, oak, and sumac that causes the allergic rash and blister is urushiol, which occurs in the sap of all three. It affects seven out of every 10 persons it touches, but nobody knows why it affects some and not others. You have to touch urushiol to develop the allergic reaction, and touching a plant is the usual method of exposure. But you can touch it indirectly via garden tools, work clothes, pets, or the smoke from burning plants. Most people overtreat the symptoms of poison ivy and its colleagues because they're worried about scarring, which rarely occurs. The most important moves in treatment are to remove all urushiol from the skin and eliminate indirect contact. A drying lotion usually will relieve the rash and the itch that goes along with it. Urushiol itself is a mixture of several derivatives of catechol. Each has unsaturated C 1 5 side chains and each, when hydrogenated, yields 3-pentadecylcatechol ( C 2 i H 3 6 0 2 ).
Irishman claims record for being buried alive One of News Scripts' far-flung correspondents tuned in BBC the other day just in time to learn that an Irishman named Feeny has claimed the world's record for being buried alive. The intrepid Feeny spent 100 hours in a coffin—getting air, water, and food through a pipe from the surface—and emerged none the worse for wear. As soon as his suit comes back from the cleaner's, Mr. Feeny and his supporters plan to go about lecturing, according to the BBC commentator, in order to drum up interest and support for increasing the record at a later date.
