Word: ultraviolet
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...British journal Nature fortnight ago, Dr. Svedberg reported experiments on molecules of hemocyanin (molecular weight, 6,740,000 units), a blue pigment from the blood of mollusks. He and his co-workers at the University of Upsala bombarded the hemocyanin particles with quanta of energy in the form of ultraviolet light. Certain wave lengths of the bombarding radiation split the blood pigment molecules into halves. This was like splitting inorganic atoms in a high-voltage atom-smasher...
...induced unseasonable sex activity by shining ordinary 25-watt lamps on sparrows much less than a year old. The beaks of the males turned dark and their testes developed spermatozoa; the ovaries of the females were swollen, contained numerous eggs. The scientist evoked even more pronounced gland changes with ultraviolet light...
...obvious, Dr. Perry was not convinced that it was a case of cause and effect. Perhaps, he reasoned, the radiation first altered some factor in the diet, which then stimulated the pituitary and through it the sex mechanism. With this hypothesis in mind. Perry irradiated whole-wheat grains with ultraviolet light, fed them to his birds. That did the trick, whereas the sex glands of other birds which received the same (normal) illumination, but did not eat the irradiated, aphrodisiac wheat, remained in the "resting condition...
...characteristic which gives the ionosphere its name and usefulness to man is the fact that at his great height, where atmospheric pressure is almost at a vacuum stage, and the atmosphere receives the full intensity of the ultraviolet sunlight, atoms are readily ionized...
...also refuses to believe that life was carried to earth in meteorites, since existing meteorites show no sign of containing viable organisms. Dr. Oparin also rejects the theory of free spores or other life-bearing particles driven to earth through interstellar space by impacts from radiation. He holds that ultraviolet or cosmic radiation would kill any such life particles beyond the sheltering blanket of the earth's atmosphere...