Word: funguses
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...wrath floods the entire industry. "The scales have not been invented," he says, "fine enough to weigh the grain of sincerity in radio." And, "Everything in radio is as valuable as a butterfly's belch." Network vice presidents are his favorite dish. They are "a bit of executive fungus that forms on a desk that has been exposed to conference." Their conferences are "meetings of men who singly can do nothing, but collectively agree that nothing can be done...
...eelgrass was the pillar of saltwater mudflat society. Under its waving, tape-thin leaves, young and weak creatures sought shelter-and the hungry and strong sought food. But in 1931 and 1932, the eelgrass meadows vanished leaving flats of barren mud as far north as Nova Scotia. A microscopic fungus (Labyrinthula) streaked the eelgrass leaves with brown, killing them to the roots...
...scallop business was hardest hit; many Americans almost forgot what little bay scallops tasted like. Ducks, geese and brant were sufferers too (they eat eelgrass shoots). The disappearance of the eelgrass upset the entire balance of eastern shoreline life. The fungus became less virulent around 1940; patches of eelgrass appeared and grew bigger. This year the eelgrass is almost back to normal. Life among the seafood is almost normal...
...knows how phloem necrosis spreads. Dutch elm disease is better understood; it is a fungus carried from elm to elm by small bark beetles. They slip through the meshes of the strictest quarantine. Spraying will kill them, and the Department is experimenting with DDT and its rival, benzene hexachloride ("Gammexane" in Britain; TIME, June 24). But it is not too hopeful. There are too many elms to spray...
Best hope for the future: resistant varieties. Siberian elms are not killed by Dutch elm disease-which probably indicates that the fungus came originally from Asia. The Buisman elm of The Netherlands is resistant also. The Department is already experimenting with fungus-defying hybrids. Perhaps, in a century, there will be an elm renaissance...