Word: thimann
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...study the growth of such a cell is difficult; it involves too many factors. So forward-looking biologists are trying to reduce cell growth to simplest terms. One of these simplifiers is British-born Professor Kenneth Vivian Thimann of Harvard. Last week, in an air-conditioned room (hot and humid), he was sprouting oat kernels in total darkness, observing them in dim red light...
Controlled Growth. After a few days, the seedlings have ghost-white roots and little white spikes (the coleoptiles) which envelop the embryo leaves. Thimann cuts off the coleoptiles, trims their points, and strings the tiny hollow cylinders on the hairlike teeth of a comb. Then he puts them in water containing a little sugar and indoleacetic acid (a growth-promoting substance). He measures them under a microscope and tucks them away in darkness...
...cells grow for a day or so, "eating" the sugar and acid. They grow in isolation, uninfluenced by the complex substances which would normally reach them from the oat seed. Professor Thimann can experiment on them, and know what he is doing...
...Thimann came to Harvard as a lecturer in botany and in 1936 was appointed as assistant professor of Plant Physiology. In 1939, he was advanced to associate professor, a title which he still holds. During the war Thimann served as a Navy specialist in London and Pearl Harbor and was engaged in making scientific analyses of anti-submaine and naval aerial warfare...
...Thimann was awarded the Stephen Hales Prize of the American Association of Plant Physiologists in 1936 and in 1942 served as Chairman of the Nov England section of that organization...