Evening star., 1950-07-17
Two important Uses
Found for Magnesium
Research With AirpIunes
And Mice Turns Up Dutu
By Thomos R. Henry


The magnesium airplane is close at
hand
It now is in the planning stage at
the Air Materiel Commands aircraft
laboratory. The construction of such =
plane is considered practical because Of
successful application of magnesium to
various structural parts, especially in
tests on the wings Of experimental
fighters.
These wings are made entirely Of
magnesium chromium alloy and use q
thick, unreinforced skin as q surface
covering in place Of the conventional
reinforced thin-skin type of construction.
The new type Of wing has been flown
for 100 hours without showing any ad-
verse structural characteristics.
Although the skin is more than seven
times as thick as that Of the conven-
tional wing it is believed very few
internal reinforcementS are needed to
prevent buckling at high loads. This
leaves considerably more space for
larger fuel tanks. AS a result of this
greater fuel load increase the range Of
the experimental planes has been in
creased by approximately 80 per cent.
Both magnesium alloy and aluminium
alloy have been used in the taick-skin
type of construction and both have been
found satisfactory. In case of emergency,
however, magnesium probably would be
much easier to procure than aluminium.
The latter is refined from the mineral
bauxite, while magnesium can be ex-
tracted economically from sea water.
During the last war magnesium alloys
had not been refined to the point where
they were suitable for aircraft construc-
tion. They all had low impact strength
and were subject to cracking and rusting
under tropical marine conditions.
Prior to its use In the experimental
fighter, the same alloy was used in the
construction of a small training plane.
It was flown under severe tropical
climatic conditions without showing any
bad effects.
A potent recruiting agent for the
armies of white blood cells which fight
germs invading the body has been re-
ported to the American Association for
the Advancement of Science here.
This is magnesium chloride. Injected
into the blood stream Of mice previously
infected with bacteria of the 'cocci"
1du1uys Ic0U1CS III u ucCIuSu lICICGoG
In the number Of so-called neutrophile
leucocytes, one Of the white blood cell
types which is especially active in re-
pelling bacteria. The increase was so
great, report Drs. Daniel M. Eisler and
e. E. Ecker of Western Reserve Univer-
sity, that it cannot be attributed to
chance.
In the tests with mice, injections were
made hourly for four hours. No notable
increase in the blood soldiers was noted
before the fourth injection, after which
it shot up markedly. There also was
some increase in the number OF invaders
ingested by each leucocyte.
The infection to which the animals
were subjected was relatively mild and
ordinarily would have been repelled by
the body's normal defense processes.
When magnesium was eliminated from
their diet. however, there was a marked
decrease in the number Of leucocyteS
which became apparent after about the
ninth day. Some of the mice died.
AS result Of the magnesium deple-
ton all the animals lost weight There
was return to a regular distribution Of
white cells, much like disbanded army
returning to civilian life.