Improvement Era, July 1929

Improvement Era Vol. XXXII JULY, 1929 No. 9 Recent Developments in Applied Chemistry M. I. A. Radio K. S. L. Address by Dr. Thomas B. Brighton THERE is probably no other of the sciences which touches our lives as we live them today in as many ways as does chemistry. It will be my pleasure to point out to you some of the com- paratively recent advances, in which the chemist has done his part, which makes our lives longer and more pleasant. Perhaps logically we should start with the chemist's part in improving our food supply. The biochemist, with the discovery of the several vitamines, has brought strongly to our attention the need of certain varieties of food, especially of green, leafy vegetables and fruits. He has shown also the need of a variety of proteins. The industrial chemist, working with the engineer by improving means of refrigeration, makes possible the supplying and keeping of vegetables, fruits and meats at all seasons. Now not only are ice and ammonia being used in refrigeration, but sulphur dioxide is used in electric refrigeration in the home, and solid carbon dioxide, or dry ice, is being used to keep cool foods in transit. Some railroad cars are now kept cool by special ammonia absorption plants instead of by ice. The improvements and economies in flour milling and blend- ing, in bread and cracker manufacture, in the making of butter substitutes, in the keeping up of quality of our foods generally, can be attributed largely to the work of the chemist. The World Threatened With Starvation IN order to grow plants for food, food for plants must be present in the soils. As the soil is cropped from year to year, it be- comes exhausted of its plant foods, and we say it must be fertilized. This fertilizing was done originally by the use of barnyard manure and other animal wastes, but since the supply of these materials was very limited, not over twenty years ago prominent students were predicting that within a generation or so the people of the world would begin to starve because of soil exhaustion. One of the es- sential plant foods, and the one which caused most worry, is nitro-