Word: walde
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...year or more since Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna, Hollywood wonder boys, formed their own producing unit at RKO Radio (TIME, Aug. 28, 1950), they have busied themselves with optimistic announcements and tinkering on movies already in production at the studio. Now, at last, they offer two products of their own: a wacky farce and an unabashed tearjerker. This double-barreled attempt to hit the target with old-fashioned bird shot may well succeed at the box office, but it also blows holes into the bright Wald & Krasna promises of original moviemaking...
Along the way, while their heroine sacrifices herself for others, Wald & Krasna sacrifice such able players as Agnes Moorehead, Joan Blondell, Richard Carlson, Everett Sloane and Cyril Cusack to the tear-stained demands of the plot. By the time a disenchanted moviegoer may have concluded that the long-suffering governess is getting just what she deserves, the producers tune up the heartstrings for a happy ending that is guaranteed to melt mascara...
...find out how rhodopsin works, Biologist Wald extracted a protein called opsin from the eyes of freshly killed animals and mixed it with vitamin A and two enzymes (organic catalysts): alcohol oxidase (from horse livers) and cozymase (from yeast). When this mixture is placed in the dark, the enzymes convert the vitamin A to retinene, a yellow pigment. Then the retinene combines with the opsin to form bright red rhodopsin...
...Wald is not quite sure how the destruction of rhodopsin by light produces nerve impulses that the brain interprets as vision. But since the impulses are electrical, he suspects that they may be started by some electrical consequence of the destruction of the rhodopsin. One possibility: that sulfhydryl (sulphur and hydrogen) groups, are exposed when the rhodopsin molecules disintegrate. These are lively chemicals with the necessary punch to start an electrical commotion...
Next project for Dr. Wald and his group will be to make their chemical mixture produce enough electricity to excite a nerve. If they accomplish this, they will have constructed something close to a completely man-made...