THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
Yale's medalist Onsager The relations bear his own name
THE NOBEL PRIZE: Hornig and Daddario Nay and aye on a general policy
the report, explains the staff member. The report, based on six days of hearings in March and April, points out alleged shortcomings in the operation of federal laboratories and makes a number of recommendations to "increase the efficiency and capabilities" of such labs. Specifically, the Daddario committee recommends greater interagency research and criticizes federal laboratories for not being more responsive to solving national problems such as crime, transportation, and pollution. The report explains that the massive national investment in federal laboratories (about $3.5 billion of the $17 billion obligated for all research and development for fiscal 1969) coupled with current budget restrictions makes it even more important that these labs be used effectively. "No longer can we afford an automatic response of 'Let's build another laboratory' when a new agency is created," the report argues. As an alternative, the subcommittee calls for expanded interagency use of existing laboratories. Accordingly, the report recommends that the Office of Science and Technology and the Bureau of the Budget pull together in one policy statement the laws, orders, and bulletins on cross-agency work. The report concludes that the present policy for interagency sharing of federal laboratories is "generally passive" and is not widely encouraged. "No one federal office has a working responsibility for the utilization of government laboratories. The Office of Science and Technology, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Federal Council for Science and Technology have exhibited only low-priority interest." The report notes that OST director Dr. Donald F. Hornig does not favor general federal policies (which his office would be primarily responsible for developing and implementing) for cooperation among federal agencies. 20 C&EN NOV. 4, 1968
Chemistry-It's Onsager U.S. scientists are making a clean sweep of the Nobel Prizes. As C&EN was going to press last week, word was received from Stockholm that Dr. Lars Onsager, 65, of Yale University had won the prize in chemistry and that Dr. Luis W. Alvarez, 57, of the University of California, Berkeley, had won the physics prize. U.S. chemists have already won the prize in medicine. Dr. Onsager, J. Willard Gibbs professor of theoretical chemistry at Yale, is cited for "the discovery of the reciprocal relations bearing his name which are fundamental for the thermodynamics of irreversible processes." ACS member Onsager is the 16th American to receive the chemistry award, which now consists of a gold medal, a citation, and a cash award of $70,000. The physics prize has been awarded to an American 28 times. Dr. Alvarez is cited for his pioneering work with subatomic particles. Dr. Onsager, a native Norwegian, is renowned for his theoretical contributions in statistical mechanics. He used the principles of detailed balance to show that cross coefficients in linear equations describing the various fluxes in simultaneous irreversible processes are simply and predictably related to each other. This work has initiated a new area of scientific study—irreversible thermodynamics.
AMINO ACIDS:
Linking Cows and Peas The proteins histone IV from calf thymus and histone IV from pea seedlings have an almost identical amino acid sequence. This drab-sounding finding has far-reaching implications in the evolution of life itself. It implies that all plant and animal life may have had a common ancestor. If nothing else, the finding underlines the highly important and extremely specific function of the histones, proteins that are attached to the deoxyribonucleic acid of chromosomes.
Reported at the autumn meeting of the National Academy of Sciences at California Institute of Technology last week, the research was a collaboration between scientists at Caltech and at the UCLA medical school. Dr. James Bonner and Dr. Douglas Fambrough of Caltech isolated and purified histone IV from the two sources, whereas Dr. Robert Delange and Dr. Emil L. Smith of UCLA did the amino acid sequencing. There is much evidence that the histones, which are very basic proteins, can attach themselves to the chromosome^ DNA in such a way as to block off specific information in the genes, such as how to make a certain protein. This may explain why one cell in an organism is very different from another one even though they both contain the same bank of hereditary information. Dr. Bonner, who has done much work on histones at Caltech, has previously found that there are eight types of histones and that these same types exist in a variety of plants and animals. Thus, a given histone, such as type IV, from the cow has its homologue in the pea plant and both have similar chemical properties and similar amino acid analyses. He decided to concentrate on these two organisms and on histone IV for a more detailed study. He and his coworker had to germinate some 20 tons of pea seeds to get enough seedlings for an eventual yield of 2 grams of pure histone IV. The animal work was easier, requiring only about 20 kg. of calf thymus glands. For the analysis, Dr. Bonner turned to Dr. Smith ("a master of amino acid sequencing") and his colleague Dr. Delange at UCLA. The results described by Dr. Delange last week show an amazingly close structure for the histone IV from the animal and plant sources. Both are made up of 102 amino acids, and both have the same N-terminal and C-terminal amino acids. Both have a methionine residue at position 18 from the Cterminal, and cleavage at this point yields a peptide with identical amino acid sequence. The latest results show that the two proteins are identical all along the line except in two places. In one position, a lysine residue in cow histone IV is replaced by an arginine in peas. In another, valine in the cow is replaced by isoleucine in peas. From these results, it appears that the functions of histones in chromosomes are quite specific and require a specific amino acid sequence. The findings also imply that the gene responsible for making histone IV was around by the time the ancestor for higher plants and animals evolved.
