Science: Red in the Outer Darkness

Among reports to the National Academy of Sciences meeting at Madison, Wis. last week:

> Ultraviolet photography is revealing so many more nebulae near the uttermost range of the telescope that astronomers may have to reconsider their theories as to the size of the star-filled universe. Ordinary photographs showed fewer & fewer nebulae out near the 500,000,000 light-year limit of range, and some scientists assumed that this might be the approximate radius beyond which lay infinite emptiness. But Astronomers Albert Edward Whitford and Joel Stebbins of the University of Wisconsin knew that the far-off nebulae were reddish (a spectroscopic phenomenon which makes many astronomers believe outer galaxies are moving away from the earth). They also knew that red photographs poorly and suspected a lot of nebulae were being overlooked. Their experiments with plates sensitive to ultraviolet light revealed so many additional nebulae that the question of whether there is anything but emptiness beyond the range of present lenses must remain unsolved until the giant Mount Palomar telescope is finished in 1942 or 1943. This will see twice as far, catch light rays that left the stars a billion years ago.

> Nicotine is formed entirely in tobacco roots, not at all in the leaves. Evidence, presented by Botanist Ray Fields Dawson of the University of Missouri:tomato leaves grafted on tobacco plants are smokable, but tobacco leaves grafted on tomato vines have no nicotine flavor at all.

> Morphine is habit-forming partly because it makes the body’s smooth muscles (such as those in intestinal walls) consume more oxygen. According to F. E. Shideman and Maurice Harrison Seevers of the University of Wisconsin, this oxygen consumption continues for several days after morphine has been stopped and may bring on the agonizing cramps of which deprived addicts complain.

Milkweed is an ideal rubber substitute, according to the president of General Tire & Rubber Co. Unlike petroleum-derived synthetics, it can be processed completely by existing rubber machinery.