Michigan State University - Red Cedar Log Yearbook (East Lansing, MI)

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' Q . '55 . o 3 .3355 X o .ms .S Si ii rl 'human 1-'1lln1lin-3 A cemetery for radioactive wastes in a remote region of the cam- pus provides controlled safety in the disposal of used isotopes. 16 600 YEARS OF ACI-IING TEETH An MSU laboratory contains in residence several hun- dred unusually pampered white rats. These aristocrats of the rodent set can trace their ancestry back 30 genera- tions, a feat which would involve over 600 years of family history for a human. In return for their good life all that they are expected to do is to either have or not have tooth decay, whichever nature dictates. As it happens, how- ever, Mother Nature has been given a highly controlled assist in her choice by three MSU scientists. Like rock 'n' roll, dental decay appears to be an affliction of our times, to be borne with the temporary relief that only partially adequate measures can provide. Since 1930, however, when a student seeking a research project consulted Dr. Carl A. Hoppert, professor of chem- istry, and found himself investigating the effect of diet on tooth decay, the problem of the aching molar has been under continuous attack at Michigan State. It was not long after the 1930 beginning that Dr. Hop- pert was joined by Dr. Harrison R. Hunt, a geneticist now professor emeritus and former head of Zoology. A third scientist, Dr. Samuel Rosen, a microbiologist, com- pleted the team in 1952. Though modern dental surgery has improved immensely in the last several decades and the device of putting fluoride in drinking water has reduced tooth decay in many areas, the basic problem, that of cause, has not been solved. It is this that the trio of chemist, geneticist and microbiolo- gist has been studying. In the case of the illustrious white rats, long genetic research has shown successfully that there is an hereditary factor involved in both resistance and susceptance to den- tal decay. Other areas of investigation have involved diet, amount and content of saliva, and micro-organisms sus- pected of contributing to decay. Early in the experimentation it was found that a certain diet was more decay-producing than others. This ration, called the Hoppert-Webber-Cannifl diet, received wide- spread attention. More recent studies of micro-organisms have indicated that no one type should be considered the chief villian. The main thing, in fact, that has become clear from the research is that there is no one cause of any kind, but rather, several, some of which have been determined, some only suspected and others still unknown. The three MSU scientists assert that the elimination of dental decay is an eventual certainty. Whether this oc- curs in the near or far future, there is little doubt that the work at Michigan State will have contributed greatly to the success. THE MIGHTY MESSAGE How do you like your news? From television? Radio? The State News? Or in these troubled times would you rather simply ignore it entirely? If your choice is the last of these, you probably haven't had much luck.

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RESEARCH The mind of MSU is a curious mind, adventurous and creative. There might have been no beet sugar industry today if it were not, and because it is, there may someday be no tooth decay, and perhaps no cancer. Though MSU has seen much new on her campus in recent years, the attitude of continuing inquiry is as old as the university herself. We are by charter and purpose a university of applied science, but the meaning of applied exists here only in its broadest possible sense. While State's Engineering Experiment Station expands existing industry and even opens entirely new commercial areas, such as it has through the development of water repellent dyes, MSU physicists explore the age of the universe and MSU com- munications experts chart the impact of major news. The entire dimension of science at Michigan State is beyond brief description. Each of the varied areas of inquiry contains many stories. A few of them are here: MUSHROOMS AND DR. LUCAS The apple a dayv experiments conducted by the late and honored Dr. E. H. Lucas, Professor of Horticulture, who succumbed to a heart attack in late January, received national publicity as he observed the effects of a daily apple ration on the health of several hundred MSU stu- dents. The test was indeed an interesting sidelight to Dr. Lucas' work, but a sidelight it was, and only a small part of his unique but fundamental approach to the problem of cancer. Tracing them through folklore, he investigated many varieties of plants with reputed medici- nal powers on the supposition that the increased cancer rates of recent years could be caused by our more highly cultivated but less potent modern plant foods. Dr. Lucas, death cut short his work before he could find conclusive evidence to support his theory, but in one case he actually discovered tumor inhibiting chemicals in several varieties of the lowly mushroom. Investigation of Dr. Lucas' theories will be continued, but this is by no mean MSU's only attack on cancer. Dr. Joseph Meites of the department of physiology and phar- macology, Dr. John C. Speck of the chemistry department and Dr. Allen S. Fox are among the many MSU scientists seeking cancer causes and possible cures. Dr. Meites, part of whose work is supported by the U.S. Public Health Service, is investigating the effect of hormones on the as yet unknown mechanism which alters the basic protein structure of healthy cells, turning them into malignant destroyers. He has so far demonstrated the unusual fact that certain hormones, notably thyroxine and hydrocortisone, can either increase or decrease the incidence of skin tumors in mice exposed to a cancer causing irritant, depending entirely on whether the hor- mone is administered before or after the irritant. Dr. Speck is exploring an approach which amounts to an outwitting of cancer. By the use of chemical com- pounds called anti-metabolites, the very appetite of cancer which destroys healthy tissue is used as a means to destroy the cancerous cells themselves. Like sleeping pills, anti- metabolites merely inhibit the activity of the body's law- abiding and temperate citizen-cells, but the criminal cancer Four pedigreed white rats take time out from an indolent life to contribute their saliva to the study of tooth decay. is greedy. It is believed that in their wild frenzy to grow, malignant cells will overdose and destroy themselves. Dr. Fox is searching for answers to the cause of cancer by investigating the affect of heredity on proteins, the building blocks of the living cell. By examining the ves- sels of heredity, the genes and chromosomes which exist in every cell, Dr. Fox hopes to find a genetic process which causes the development of the kind of proteins found in cancerous tissue. These projects are only a few of the many such on campus. In fact, 13 such programs of research are being supported by the American Cancer Society alone, while a number of others are being carried on either inde- pendently or with partial support from some other agency. 15

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Surrounded as we are by countless magazines and news- papers, radio and TV, the impact of mass communication media has become almost unavoidable in modern living. Michigan State is among the first universities to ap- preciate fully the magnitude of these media in our daily lives, and to undertake large scale scientific investigation of their influence. The Communications Research Center of the College of Communication Arts is the eye of these investigations. The Center, under the direction of Dr. Paul Deutschmann, seeks the answers to three basic questions: 1. What are the effects of communication? 2. What are the important variables in the communi- cation process? 3. How do these variables interact? Much of what we may assume intuitively to be true regarding messages, from major news items to political speeches, has already been shown to be only partially true or even false in the Center's studies. For instance, in spite of the growth of television and the continued prominence of radio, newspapers remain the chief au- thority on news information for most people. A case in point is the story of President Eisenhower's light stroke several years ago. Research by the Center revealed that 80 percent of persons polled used newspapers as a source of information, either direct or supplementary. The effect of the political address is still under study, but it has been found that only a small number of readers or listeners appear to change their political position during a campaign. These few, however, might make the dif- ference in a tight election, thus making important the continued study of such influences. Another area of productive and successful work for the Center has been in face-to-face communications. One of the biggest problems in this area exists for foreign tech- nicians trained in this country and returning to their homelands. Communicating their new knowledge to their fellow countrymen is often as difficult as mastering the special knowledge itself. Under a contract with the International Cooperation Administration, the College of Communication Arts has conducted 14 workshops providing training for over 850 foreign participants. This program, conducted in Cava- pon, Virginia, has already achieved a notable degree of success. According to Dr. Deutschmann, the long range purpose of the center is to gain a better understanding of the com- munication process, not only to aid those whose business it is to persuade, but to enable everyone who watches or listens to be more selective. OUR COY MOTHER EARTH By celestial standards, Mother Earth is by no means ready to retire, but it may be that she has been fooling us in recent years about her true age. The latest and pre- sumably most accurate way of getting around the old girl's coyness has been through the study of radioactive decay. Any radioactive substance loses its intensity of radia- tion, or decays, in a predictable fashion. The time measurement usually associated with such a substance is its half-life, which is the time required for half of it to decay into another element. In the case of radium this half-life is 1620 years. In other words, if we were to set aside one gram of pure radium today, we would have one half gram in 1620 years, and one quarter gram in 3240 years. With such knowledge physicists are able to deter- mine how long certain elements have been present in the earth, and hence, the earth's age. Dr. William H. Kelly and Dr. George B. Beard of the physics and astronomy department have reason to believe, however, that the lives of some radioactive elements have not been measured accurately. One of the problems in such measurements is the presense of background radiation caused, it is believed, by cosmic ray bombardment from outer space and by the natural radioactivity of some minerals in the earth's crust. Although this radiation is slight, there is enough present to cause trouble. To minimize this difficulty the two physicists, using more ingenuity than money, have constructed a container which shields any radioactive sample undergoing study from background radiation. This device, consisting of thousands of pounds of metal and called the f'sewertron, gets its name from its center cavity, an old sewer pipe picked up at a local junk yard. But if the sewertron's name is a jest, its performance is not. According to Dr. Beard, studies which might normally have taken weeks have been managed in a matter of days since its comple- UOI1. Preliminary findings have been encouraging, and if future studies substantiate these, then entire theories may have to be readjusted concerning the age of the earth and the universe. THE STORIES UNTOLD These, then, form a small sample of the breadth of MSU scientific inquiry. That they merely hint at the magnitude of this breadth is apparent in light of the hundreds of stories not told here. Another equally rep- resentative group might contain the story of perception studies in the department of psychology, or more details on the radioisotope cemetery pictured on the opposite page. It could tell of packaging developments, studies in sociology or anthropology, or the new undergraduate research program beginning this year in the College of Engineering. The list is endless, and each story told must leave much in itself unsaid, perhaps unsayable. But however poor in detail this must be compared to that which has gone untold, one fundamental fact is obvious. None of it would be possible wthout the in- genuity and dedication of the scholars, student and faculty alike, who constitute the mind of MSU. l7