Penn State University - La Vie Yearbook (University Park, PA)

Page 33 text:

Summing up the results of an 18-month study on exercise, Dr. W. Channing Nicholas said, As people get in shape, the frequency of abnormal heartbeats appears to decrease. Detailed results stress that exercise greatly improves heart- lung performance. Higher performance may well be lifesaving, according to Karl Stoedefalke, Penn State physical educator, who said that inactive people are more likely to die from their first heart attack. Nicholas and Stoedefalke are part of a study observing 40 to 59-year-old Penn State men who take part in a noontime exercise program. Researchers are conducting tests on the theory that exercise, like drugs, can be administered for the suppression of abnormal heartbeats. Members of the exercise study's control and exercise groups underwent an exhaustive physical examination, and were tested to measure background or pre-program levels of heart activity. They walked on a treadmill while wired to an electrocardiogram. Both groups were subjected to progressive and maximal tests on the treadmill, reporting any pain during each stage of treadmill elevation. Irregular heartbeats were observed. Perhaps, several years more of data with ectopic (irritant to the heart, characterized on an EKG tracing as a wild electrical discharge) beats will give us more details of exercise-heart performance relationships, said Dr. Nicholas. 29

Page 32 text:

RESEARCH: The Human Body A new rechargeable cardiac pacemaker, expected to last twenty years between replacements, has been developed by Dr. G. Frank O. Tyers. surgeon at Hershey Medical Center, and Robert Brownlee, electrical engineer at Penn State. The pacemaker will last longer, cost less and is smaller than pacemakers now in use. The unit can be kept fully charged by placing a coil device against the chest for 20 minutes each week. Although weekly recharging is recommended, the pacemaker could operate for up to 3Vi years between charges. The only other rechargeable unit now in use requires 90 minutes of recharging each week and would stop in six weeks if not recharged. Since conventional pacemakers must be replaced every two years, the Tyers-Brownlee unit could save the approximately 80,000 yearly recipients of pacemakers hospital expenses, scar tissue from repeated surgery, and emotional trauma of repeated hospitalization. The new pacemaker is only about half as thick as conventional non-rechargeable units and consumes only about 25 microwatts of electrical power. The common pocket transistor radio requires approximately 250,000 microwatts. In a recently patented process called Replamineform, two Penn State faculty members and a California doctor are casting artificial human bones in molds of South Pacific coral, and synthetic arteries in the projecting spines of sea urchins. Work began four years ago when materials scientist Eugene W. White and marine geologist |on Weber observed that coral samples Weber had collected from the Pacific Ocean had a unique pore structure. Coral samples were found to have the microscopic honeycomb of interconnecting pores, from 100 to 400 microns in diameter, thought to be best for bone tissue ingrowth. In implanted bone replacement parts, natural tissue ingrowth is important since it locks implanted parts in place. In the process patented by Eugene and Rodney White and |on Weber, coral is machined to the shape needed for a bone or joint replacement, or formed into screws, pins or other replacement parts. It is impregnated with liquid wax and dissolved in hydrochloric acid. From the wax negative that remains, a positive is made in plastic, ceramic or metal. To obtain ingrowth of soft tissue for the artery application, sea urchins, with a porosity of 15 to 30 microns in diameter, are used. The microstructures of their spines are replicated in various biomedical soft polymers. The synthetic blood vessels are especially promising for coronary bypass surgery, according to Dr. Rod White, now a second year resident surgeon at Harbor General Hospital in Los Angeles.

Page 34 text:

A refuse and nutrient combination has been found to well serve as an inexpensive substitute for two million tons of topsoil now used annually in greenhouses. For less than the cost of soil, properly treated and crushed coal refuse can be trucked for use at distances as far as New York and Baltimore. Using extra light and balanced moisture levels, experimented rose yields were 60 to 90 per cent higher than when grown in commonly used topsoil. The waste material can be crushed and double screened tor about fifty cents per ton, plus delivery costs. The soilless media now in use ranges in price from four to seven dollars per ton, plus delivery costs. Mining engineers have found other uses for the refuse material, including use as anti-skid material on icy roads. It may eventually serve as an aggregate in road blacktopping, as well as basic road- building material. A team of Penn State researchers have shown that waste heat from electric power plants and other sources can be dissipated by pumping it through underground pipes. The land used by researchers was irrigated with treated city sewage effluent. This new research concept is not only an alternative to thermal pollution of streams and rivers but is also a way to dispose of municipal waste water. A higher production of crops also results from the wastewater nutrients and warming effect of waste heat. Dr Archie J. McDonnell, Dr. David R Dewalle and their associates have concluded that the process can compete economically with other methods of waste heat dissipation. It should cost less than dry cooling towers but possibly more than the most popular system, wet cooling towers. In Penn State's circular system, waste hot water is circulated through a pipeline buried under irrigated soil, cooled, and returned to the plant for reuse. 0 j