At Washington

The high domed hall of Washington's National Academy of Sciences rang with applause last week as famed scientists presented proofs of theories. They discussed:

Brains. The brains of three brilliant scientists, Sir William Osier, Granville Stanley Hall, Edward Sylvester Morse, were earnestly examined by Dr. Henry Herbert Donaldson of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Philadelphia. He hoped these mighty mentalities had left some physical traces on the twisted convolutions of their brains. The tortuous hills and valleys of the cerebral hemispheres were much alike; nothing could be inferred from them about the tastes and pursuits of the living minds. These are matters of the chemical relationships in the living tissue; death blots them out; the brains of dead men look very much alike, although the brains of scholars are generally a little heavier.

Dogs, Glands. Diseased glands are responsible for many blue ribbons in dog shows. The Boston bulldog with his round head, short muzzle, short legs, suffers from abnormal thyroid and pituitary glands. In man this condition produces the dwarf; the skulls of dwarf and bulldog are strikingly similar. The kindly, overgrown St. Bernard, with his heavily wrinkled forehead, massive limbs, shows a pathological pituitary gland. The same condition in man produces the enormous heavily boned circus giant. Dr. Charles Rupert Stockard of Cornell University Medical College experimented with some of these pure blooded deformities. Crossing a famous Great Dane sire with a noted St. Bernard he found that all the pups of the several litters died within 30 hours, although both bitch and sire were parents of previous prize winners. Autopsies on the litters revealed diseased kidneys throughout; the external sex organs of the male pups seemed normal but the internal sex organs were definitely female in type, showing that the pituitary gland has a profound influence on sex development. --

Plants, Lamps.. Plants are hard working members of society. Dr. John Morris Arthur of Boyce Thompson Institute, New York tried to fool them into working all night as well as all day by turning on 48 1,000 watt incandescent lamps. He fooled clover and buckwheat all of the time; lettuce and radish 17 hours of the time; tomatoes rebelled, died.

More Matter. The physicists are creeping up on the origin of matter. Dr. Robert Andrew Millikan of the California Institute of Technology, pursuing his study of the cosmic ray, has illuminated new chapters in the celestial life of the hydrogen atom. Those infinitely tiny but infinitely active particles not only leap at each other explosively to form helium, but also by special jumps unite to form oxygen and nitrogen. The exact nature of the jump is not yet fully understood, but each different jump shoots off its own private signal, a ray of definite power.

Professor Millikan has climbed the highest mountains, in Bolivia, Panama, California; measured these rays; found them about 200 times as penetrating as an

Xray. The same rays were found in Bolivia and in California, showing that they come from a source so vast & remote that they strike the whole surface of the earth impartially. Theoretical calculations by Millikan out of Einstein, on the strength of the rays that would be shot forth if hydrogen atoms collided to form oxygen or nitrogen, perfectly checked the actual measurements made.

The suns and stars may not be the only scenes of activity. Helium, oxygen, nitrogen are common in the earth. Have they always existed as helium, oxygen, nitrogen; or have they been formed and are they being formed from the hydrogen which is so abundant in the soil? Is it possible that the terrific activity which goes on high overhead is taking place underfoot at the same time? It is, says Science.

Dr. Millikan pooh-poohed the fear of more timid citizens and blasted the hopes of more venturesome engineers. Man can never use the atom as a source of power or destruction by exploding and releasing its energy. This happens in Nature's laboratory; can be observed, measured, photographed; but the atoms available for the experimental laboratory are already in a fairly stable form. Splitting them up would require more power than they would set free.

Nebulium. Certain unfamiliar lines in the spectra of far off nebulae have long been thought by astronomers to be made by a mysterious element which they called nebulium. This idea was exploded by Professor Ira Sprague Bowen, famed physicist colleague of Dr. Millikan. He found the lines are caused by the very familiar elements oxygen and nitrogen. They seemed unfamiliar because, in the rare atmosphere around the stars these elements have room to cut complicated capers, storing up energy for some time, then jumping actively and shooting off rays. In the dense atmosphere of the earth they are always being bumped by, or bumping, other atoms, cannot save their strength to go into a highly active state give very different lines when photographed.

Changing the Species.--Some day eyes, complexions, stature, nose lengths may be changed by radiation. Professor Hermann Joseph Muller, famed biologist of the University of Texas, has played the X-ray on fruit flies making them produce strange, outlandish offspring. The pedigreed fruit flies (whose hereditary characteristics had been known for generations) suddenly brought forth anomalies with curiously colored eyes, unreasonable wings, radically bobbed hair antennae. New species came into existence, the special marks of the X-ray were transmitted down the generations. Biologist Muller tried the effect of other agents on the germ plasm. Treatment with lead, arsenic, poisons which were known to change cells had no effect. X-rays and cosmic rays are the only forces in nature that can shake up the germ cells, changing their original plan of development, making the changes hereditary in many cases. X-rays and cosmic rays exist everywhere. They may, thinks Dr. Muller, be responsible for all changes in the evolutionary tree.

Marine Masons. The weeds of the sea build the reefs of the coast. Dr. Marshall Avery Howe of the New York Botanical Garden showed pictures of massive reefs in Little Conestoga Creek, Pa., in Green Lake, N. Y., in the Dutch East Indies, all made recently by the tiny delicate blue green algae or the red algae. All through the ages these little plants have been busy, secreting lime from sea water, changing it into rock, depositing it in ever higher mounds until islands were formed. When the sea recedes the islands are left as towering peaks. The minute, lime-secreting animal, coral, has been given the credit for these land masses, but recent borings show that the plants of the sea have done their bit.

Age of Man. It looked for a moment as though the paleontologists and the anthropologists had agreed to quarrel. Dr. James Williams Gidley of the Smithsonian Institution described finds in Florida which he believed to be ancient human remains. Dr. Ales Hrdlicka of the same institution questioned the value of a paleontologist's opinion on the antiquity of such finds. Man's habit of burying the dead confuses most excavators and it takes an experienced anthropologist to tell whether remains belong in a certain stratum or have been artificially introduced there.

Sleep. Middle aged college professors are more restless in the night than their wives, students, or janitors. This was the major result of a careful study of sleep by Dr. Harry Miles Johnson, of the University of Pittsburgh.

Tennis. Nobel Prizewinner Albert Abraham Michelson has challenged Nobel Prizewinner Arthur Holly Compton for the title of "Tennis Champion of Nobel Prizewinners in Physics at the University of Chicago." Physicist Michelson, 75 years old, will have the light on his side, having measured it for so many friendly years. Physicist Compton, 38, will have the electrons and Gamma rays cheering for him. The match was scheduled for May n.