Word: lightful
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...study this mechanism, Beltsville scientists under Dr. Sterling B. Hendricks, 60, first played all the colors of the spectrum on a variety of plants. Most colors had no effect. But when red light was played on the plants, the effect was dramatic. They reacted even to a brief, 30-sec. flash of red light during a 14-hour period of darkness. Apparently programed to the proposition that a new day had begun, the plants altered growth cycles accordingly...
Having learned that red light was the key, the scientists squeezed the juice out of bean seedlings, separated the juices into many different fractions, and tested each for its reaction to red light. Their quarry proved to be a protein-containing pigment that makes up only one part in one million of the juice...
Change in the Morning. In a way that scientists still do not fully comprehend, the pigment changes its chemical structure when red light hits it. As long as the red light lasts, the new structure persists. When the light dies, the pigment begins slowly to change back to its original state, a process that takes roughly twelve hours. Thus, when the red rays in the morning sun strike a leaf, the light-sensitive pigment changes into its new state and stays that way until sundown. This tells the plant, in the chemical language to which it responds, how long...
...check their findings, Beltsville's men dosed plants with red light at all hours of the night. Fooling plants into believing the nights were longer or shorter than they really were seasonally, the scientists were able to make plants bloom months early or late. They have so efficiently programed some pine trees that they grew only 8 in. in four years-responding to the signal that it is winter, no time for growth-while their unmolested neighbors rose...
...ever-cautious ICC warned railroaders that the N. & W.-Virginian decision, which did not involve any opposition from competitors or stockholders, is not a green light for mergers as a way out of financial problems. But it is at least a yellow caution light. Next on ICC's docket is the proposed merger between the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, whose combined loss in 1959's first half is more than $2,000,000. A clear track for this second major combination would revive industrywide merger talks (e.g., between the Pennsylvania and the New York Central...