Chemical world This week havioral genetics, and neurobi­ology/' The rejected recommenda­tions asked for an examination of educational implications of human behavioral genetics and for estab­lishment of an academy working group to study the feasibility of a long-range study of interactions of genetic and environmental factors in human development.

As the academy moves more openly into matters of public—and political—interest, it is coming un­der increasing scrutiny. Philip M. Boffey has resigned from the staff of Science magazine to conduct a nine-month study of NAS for Ralph Nader's Center for the Study of Re­sponsive Law. The book-length re­port that will likely be the result of the study will cover several broad questions, Mr. Boffey says. Among them: How and where does NAS exert influence on public affairs? How good is its advice? And what do its client federal agencies do with the advice?

Expands membership scope The National Academy of Sciences may be about to expand the scope of its membership, but this year's 50 new members include a solid representation of 21 scientists from chemistry and chemically related fields, such as molecular biology and geophysics. Seventeen of the new members are ACS members.

Academic scientists among the new members include Philip P. Co­hen, University of Wisconsin; Mil­dred Cohen, University of Pennsyl­vania; Josef Fried, University of Chicago; Luigi C. Gorini, Harvard; Harry B. Gray, Caltech; Ernest M. Grunwald, Brandeis; Arie J. Haa-gen-Smit, Caltech; Norman Hacker-man, Rice; William P. Jencks, Brandeis; Michael Kasha, Florida State; Irving M. London, Alfred Einstein College of Medicine; Fred­eric M. Richards, Yale; Oliver Smithies, Wisconsin; and Gerald J. Wasserburg, Caltech.

Industrial scientists include Ar­thur M. Bueche, General Electric; Vladimir Haensel, Universal Oil Products; Earl L. Muetterties and William D. Phillips, Du Pont; and Sidney Udenfriend, Roche Institute of Molecular Biology.

Two other new academy members are 1970 Nobel Prize winner Julius Axelrod, of the National Institute of Mental Health, and Cleveland Clinic Foundation director emeritus Irvine H. Page.

BIOCHEMISTRY: Regulating cell division Although scientific sessions at last week's annual meeting of the Na­tional Academy of Sciences were cut back to make way for extended business meetings, there was still room for two papers from Dr. Al­bert Szent-Gyôrgyi's group at the Institute for Muscle Research, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass. The scientists —Dr. Szent-Gyorgyi, Dr. Laszlo G. Egyud, and Dr. J. A. McLaughlin— disclosed results in support of their theory of how cell division is regulated: Cells become cancerous when the regulation fails.

For a number of years, Dr. Szent-Gyorgyi and his colleagues have pursued the idea that cell division is prevented by the donor-acceptor interaction of an electrophilic chemical with cellular nucleophiles —perhaps sulfhydryl groups. The scientists have speculated that a glyoxal—a compound with a term­inal aldehyde group and an adjacent ketone function—might fill the role of the endogenous electrophile. Methylglyoxal is the simplest ex­ample. They also have noted that cells contain a glyoxalase system of two enzymes that convert glyoxals to a-hydroxycarboxylic acids. Ac­tivation of the glyoxalase system might act in the regulation of cell division by decreasing the concen­tration of glyoxal and thus making cell division possible.

Dr. Szent-Gyorgyi and his col­leagues have now found in animal tissues a natural glyoxal with a molecular weight between 500 and 1000. An extract from mouse or calf liver injected in mice sup­presses tumor growth.

Tumor growth is also suppressed

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

when the scientists inject the keto-alcohol produced by the reaction of methylglyoxal with maleimide. They think that maleimide protects the glyoxal from reaction with the glyoxalase system until the deriva­tive arrives at the tumor cells. There, enzymes may split the keto-alcohol to produce methylglyoxal.

LABOR RELATIONS: Professors organize Increasing activities on campus of the National Labor Relations Board and of the American Association of University Professors are pro­foundly affecting the traditional at­mosphere of faculty-administration relations. For the first time, NLRB has extended its jurisdiction to all employees of private nonprofit schools. And AAUP, in reversing its earlier nonbargaining stance, is openly seeking certification as a col­lective bargaining agent on campus.

NLRB last month ruled against Long Island University's administra­tion in ordering elections to be held before May 20 to certify a collective bargaining agent for faculty at two of three campuses. Vying for bar­gaining agent in the forthcoming election are the United Federation of College Teachers (UFCT) and AAUP at the university's Zeckendorf campus, Brooklyn, N.Y. UFCT runs unopposed at the C. W. Post Col­lege campus at Brookville, N.Y. And no agent has filed for election at Long Island's Southampton, N.Y., campus.

Briefs are due today at NLRB in a dustup that AAUP is having with Fordham University, New York City, over eligibility of faculty to bargain collectively. At Monmouth College, West Long Branch, N.J., the Faculty Association of Monmouth College (FAMCO) has been negoti­ating a first contract with the ad­ministration since FAMCO won cer­tification in February in an election under NLRB jurisdiction.

Until 1970, NLRB had not estab­lished jurisdiction over faculties at private schools, and public college professors were covered under state public employee laws. In 1951 NLRB declined jurisdiction over faculty at Columbia University. Last summer, however, the board accepted jurisdiction over library employees of Cornell University in a door-opening decision. Last No­vember the board exercised its rule-making function to extend ju­risdiction to all employees of non-

8 C&EN MAY 3, 1971

C&EX: Madeleine Polinger

Physicists publicize plight At the American Physical Society meeting last week in Washington, D.C., several hundred of the 2200 attendees were wearing buttons sold by gradu­ate students concerned about the un­employment situation of physicists. The button, based on work of Dr. Al­lan Cartter, chancellor of New York University, shows that projected sup­ply of physicists will far outstrip de­mand through the 1980's.

profit schools whose annual income is more than $1 million. Monmouth College and FAMCO proceeded ami­cably under NLRB jurisdiction.

AAUP has only recently turned to petitioning certification as a collec­tive bargaining agent. The associa­tion now joins the National Educa­tion Association and the American Federation of Teachers in a three-way rivalry for allegiances of col­lege professors. AAUP has mostly been active in setting salary stand­ards and defending academic free­dom and tenure. The ultimate weapon in its armory has been the threat of censure. At recent annual meetings the association has flirted increasingly with the idea of be­coming a bargaining agent, culmi­nating in its entry in several elec­tions on college and university cam­puses in the past year.

So far, though, only about two dozen four-year colleges and univer­sities have elected bargaining agents. Petitions from putative agents are pending with several other four-year schools, however. In today's shaky employment situa­tion in many areas of science-related work, the experience gained in de­veloping collective bargaining ma­chinery in academia will be of keen interest not only to chemistry pro­fessors, but also to chemists and chemical engineers throughout all fields in industry and government.

POLLUTION: Delay detergent labeling Nixon Administration officials have asked the Federal Trade Commis­sion to delay a decision on the agency's proposal to require a pol­lution warning in advertising and on packages of phosphate-based de­tergents. The Administration wants the delay at least until it has time to fully develop legislative and administrative proposals aimed at limiting the use of phosphates in detergents. In any event, an FTC decision is probably months away.

The Administration's proposals will likely be completed before the FTC reconvenes hearings on labeling in mid-June, Russell Train, chairman of the Council on En­vironmental Quality, said in a state­ment read by an aide at FTC hear­ings last week. At present, Mr. Train said, prospects for major re­ductions of phosphates in deter­gents must be tempered by caution in accepting substitutes with haz­ardous or unknown health charac­teristics. It's just this sort of cau­tion, he says, that is being exercised with NTA—"a promising substitute for phosphates."

Jesse L. Steinfeld, the U.S. Sur­geon General, told the FTC commis­

sioners that he, too, is concerned about the health and environ­mental impact of alternatives to phosphates. He warned that tests indicate that some currently used substitutes for phosphates are clearly toxic or caustic and pose serious accident hazards, especially to children.

Industry representatives took a dim view of FTC's proposed rule, which includes a requirement to "prominently" list all of a deter­gent's ingredients on the package. Industry spokesmen argue among other things that the proposed la­beling and advertising could prompt housewives to switch away from phosphate detergents, and that removal of phosphates from sewage by waste treatment is the way to go.

Howard Morgens, president of Procter & Gamble, for instance, commented that "no legislation or trade rule can speed" the finding of a replacement for phosphates. Frederick A. Gilbert, an FMC vice president, included an endorsement of federal legislation requiring pre-market testing of potentially toxic substances. And Monsanto, in a submitted statement, takes FTC to task on the legality of the agency's proposed rule making.

C&EN: Madeleine Polinger

Radical science group protests war Among nearly 200,000 people who marched on April 24 in Washington, D.C., to protest the war in Vietnam was a contingent of Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action (SESPA), a radical science group whose motto is "Science for the People." SESPA, with some 19 branches from Berkeley to Boston, was also active at the American Physical Society annual spring meeting last week, circulating petitions against the Vietnam war in general and Presidential Science Adviser Edward E. David, Jr., in particular. Dr. David spoke at the APS banquet on government efforts to employ unemployed physicists.

MAY 3, 1971 C&EN 9