Evening star., 1942-11-26
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

Huu Stuuy
By Thomas r. Henry.
Chemists at the United States Bureau
of Standards have produced on q pilot
plant scale the first mothproof, laun-
dryproof wool.
The development, first announced
experimentally year ago, promises to
be one Of the most far-reaching in the
history Of the textile industry. Hitherto
the process has been confined to ounces.
The first pilot plant running, designed
to prove commercial applicability, was
with 100 pounds of choice wool.
The life of garments, blankets and
carpets may be prolonged for years by
the technique discovered by Drs. Milton
Harris, Walton B. Geiger and F. F.
Kabayashi of the Textile Foundation,
stationed at the Government laboratory.
The process is based on the previously
observed fact that the sulfur in the wool
molecule generally is the first point to
be attacked by the digestive juices of
moths, the alkali of soap and many
other chemicals. Through a chemical
transformation in the wool, the cost
of which is practically nil when large
quantities are treated, the chemical link
ages which involve sulfur are changed
to more stable ones In this way wool
is produced that moths cannot digest and
that is highly resistant to any damage
from laundering Neither the softness
nor the strength of the fabric is reduced
Either the raw wool or the completed
fabric can be treated, DR.. Harris
explains.
BY modification OF the technique a
fantastic possibility looms in the future
Use of waste wool and even old suits
and blankets as chicken or cattle food
even as human food.
Wool in its natural state is indigestible
by animals-other than insects. Yet 1t
belongs. together with hair, horns, hoofs,
nails, bird feathers and reptile scales,
with the great group of chemical sub
stances known as proteins which are
essential in foods to support growth
and life.
But, DR.. Harris explains, nature has
digest or break down in any way. They
are intended primarily as protective
shields for living things and must be
highly resistant.
Tests at the Bureau of Standards, in
which the wool protein was broken down
into simpler proteins, show that the in
digestibility is due to sulphur molecules
BY changing these it may become as
digestible as most other proteins.
The amounts Of B vitamins in grains
double and triple after the seeds have
terminated for a few days.
This discovery, reported to the Ma
tional Academy of Sciences here by Drs.
Paul r. Burkholder and Ida McVeieh
OF Yale University, opens up an entirely
new source for these substances, essential
to health and wartime morale, in the
/ diet. 1t also eventually may bring about
entirely new methods Of preparing cereal
foods which are bound to play more
important part in American nutrition
during the war than they have in the
past.
Use Of sprouting seeds, they point out,
long has been common in Chinese cook
ing and probably has been due to a
very ancient recognition of their extra
nutritive value, centuries before vitamins
were discovered.
The plant, as we'll as man, needs
vitamins for health and growth. In
some way it has the capacity for manu-
featuring them during its first few days
Of life and feeds on them for the rest
Of its existence.
to wheat, barley. oats and corn. In
creases were notable in thiamin. the
morale vitamin; n1acin, necessary for
the prevention Of pellagra and probably
host of other deficiency diseases; ribo-
flavin, lack Of which causes a pellagra-
like condition; and biotin most potent
Of ali the vitamins but whose function
in human nutrition remains undeter-
mined; and pyridoxine, essential for
general health.
They also found that the vitamin
content Of shoots of grains a few days
old was much greater than in the grains
themselves. The thiamin content of
young barley and wheat leaves was
double that Of the grains, the ribo-
flavin content 20 times greater. The
phenomenon is similar to that previously
demonstrated for young grass shoots.
Increased vitamin contents Of germi-
mated seeds can largely be retained, the
Yale plant Psychologists point out, when
the rather large water content is soaked
out in the preparation of cereals. The
possibility of soaking seeds a few days
before they are fed to farm animals may
introduce new methods in stock raising.
Increases, they found, differed notably
for different grains. Twelve days germi-
nation in water barely raised the thiamin
content of wheat and corn, but it doubled
the NICOTINE acid content and in the