Evening star., 1950-07-19
5000 Rise Reported
In Busic Life Process
Chemists Tell of Synthesis
In Sugar and Starch Tests
By Thomos R. Henry


more than 800-fold increase in the
efficiency of the basic process of all life
on earth-photosynt or the making
OF starches and sugars through the
chemical action of sunlight on green
leaves-has been reported by chemists
OF the Stanford Research Institute of
Leland Stanford University.
Out of these starches and sugars is
built up the body of the plant They
form the basic food of all animal life.
Broken down, they become the great coal
and petroleum deposits on which the
world depends for energy.
But Natures process is inefficient.
Only about 3 of one per cent of the SUM-
light falling on green leaves is utilized
In the chemical process, the details of
which still are little understood.
About five years ago, Drs. H. A. Spoehr
and Harold M. Miner of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington reported that
the composition of a one-celled plant
known as chlorella, one of the most prim-
tive Of all living organisms, could be
greatly altered by controlling the envi-
ronment in which photosynthesis took
place. When this green alga was grown
44A ~ NA4VAAC A4CI14uLI minute
amounts of nitrogen it was found that
more than half its complete weight was
made up of protein, nitrogen-containing
material which constitutes the building
material of the animal body. With a
different culture medium protein build
ing stopped entirely and as much as IS
per cent OF the dry weight was fat.
Shortage In Proteins.
The earth's greatest food shortage is
in proteins The results of the Carnegie
Institution scientists inquiries started
the Stanford workers on an intensive
study of the process. There was not then,
and is not now, any evidence that the
particular type of protein found in the
chlorella was of any value for human or
animal nutrition. But it was an extremely
fast-growing organism which offered
great possibilities.
The major outcome of the work to
date is the discovery of the vast increase
in the photosynthesis process with vari-
alton Of such conditions with variations
in the nutrient solution, agitation of the
water, periods of exposure and the like.
PhotosyntheSis in nature has been hit
or-miss method developed in the course
OF hundreds of millions of years of evo-
luton. 1t was to be expected that it
would prove quite ineficient-as was the
case.
A pilot plant now has been set up. It
is hoped that this eventually will result
in commercial process.
The findings are especially valuable
because they were made with light lust
as it comes from the Sun-not with spe-
cial wave lengths concentrated in the lab
oratory. 1t long has been known that
photosynthesis could be greatly in
creased by use of special radiation bands.
This, of course, would be entirely i'm
practical for the farmer.
Man well may live on bread alone-if
it contains all the natural constituents
Of wheat. or if these are added to white
flour before it is baked.
1t would provide better diet than
that of the average American family.
These are the conclusions of scientists
of the Stanford Research Institute of
Leland Stanford University after extern
sive experiments with rats, whose nu-
tritional requirements are almost identi-
cal with those of humans.
Rats fed only highly fortified white
bread grew almost precisely at the same
rate and in the same state of health
as those fed mixed diet which, it had
been determined experimentally, con-
tanned all the necessary constituents.
But it was essentially the same bread
as could have been made of whole wheat
flour. 1t was only necessary to add
water and minute amounts of vitamins
A and D.
Deficiencies Notable.
Rats grown on ordinary bread par
TALLY fortified with vitamins, on the
other hand. grew at less than a thild
this rate and showed various abnormali-
ties. Notable were deficiencies in ability
to reproduce.
The experiments demonstrate, says the
Stanford report, that highly enriched
bread supplies more of the nutritional
factors necessary to well-being than the
diet eaten by millions of Americans"
Few Americans of course, ever at
tempt to live on bread alone and the
ordinary diet is so varied that there ia
relatively little obvious dietary def
cheney. A diet of which bread con-
stitutes by. far the major part, however
is fairly common in some countries
where little effort is made at fortifica-
ton.