The Month at Caltech

THE MONTH AT CALTECH National Academy Elections • THE NATIONAL ACADEMY of Sciences, which convenes each April in Washington, D. C., last month added two members of the Institute staff to its roster of top-ranking United States scientists Dr. James F. Bonner and Dr. Dr. Bonner, Professor of Biology at the Institute, and ohy if the country& outstand rom cheet veilan physiologists, was graduated Utah in 1931. He received his Ph.D. at Caltech in 1934 and was the first graduate student to get a degree in He has been a member of the Institute faculty since 1935. Dr. Bonner's first researches were on the mechanism by which growth hormones exert their effect on plant growth-and he is still continuing these studies. National Research Council Fellow in Holland and Switzerland in 1934 he began to study the specific effect of growth hormones on the growth of plant roots. This led to a program of research on the role played by In studies of the substances given of by injured tissue that have to do with wound healing in plants, Dr. Bonner (with A. J. Haagen-Smit and James English) chemically isolated a wound hormone in pure form. * In 1938 he began an investigation-which was suspended during the war and only recently revived-of makes plants flower. As a logical extension of his work on growth hormones in plants (which, in simple language, are substances in one part of a plant that tell another part what to do), Dr. Bonner began a study of plant sociol-ogy-specifically, the chemical substances in one plant which tell another plant what to do. During the war Dr. Bonner began to investigate the chemistry and physiology of rubber formation guayule plant, working toward possible synthetic production of natural rubber. This work is still continu-ing, as are two other research projects begun during the war-one on general investigations of the proteins and enzymes of plants, another on viruses in plants. Dr. Bonner is President of the American Society of Plant Physiologists, and Chairman of the Physiological Section of the Botanical Society of America. Dr. Ralph Wilson, Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories Astronomer and Research Associate in Astronomy at the has been on the Mount Wilson staff since 1938, with Caltech since 1948. He is best known for his work in stellar astronomy, concerning the motion, position, luminosity, etc. of stellar bodies. During the last war he was a consultant with the OSRD's Office of Field Services on the develop nent of altimeters and oxygen apparatus. In Worl War I he was the American Representative on the Committee of Allies at Santiago, Chile, and also an aeronautical engineer for the Bureau of Aircraft Production at Dayton, Ohio. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, of which he was Councillor from 1934-37; and the Astronomical Society of the Pacitic, of which he was In 1926 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, and in 1948 he represented the Carnegie Institution Washington and the National Research Council at the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in The election of Dr. Bonner and Dr. Wilson to the National Academy of Sciences brings the total of Cal-tech men in the Academy to 27. The others: Carl D. Anderson, George W. Beadle, Robert F. Bacher, Eric T. Bell, Max Delbruck, Lee A. DuBridge, Paul S. Epstein, Beno Gutenberg, John G. Kirkwood, Charles C, Laurit-sen, Max Mason, Robert A. Millikan, Linus Pauling, Chester Stock, A. H. Sturtevant, Theodor H. von Kar-man, Frits Went, Oliver R. Wulf-and, from the Mount Bonner Wilson 14-MAY 1950 THE MONTH - CONTINUED -isL Ф(р.д) = Kirkwood Wilson and Palomar Observatories staff; Walter S. Adams, Horace W. Babcock, Ira S. Bowen, Edwin I. * Hubble, A. H. Joy, Paul Merrill, Seth Nicholson. Richards Medal Winner € DR. JOHN G. KIRKwOOD, Professor of Chemistry at the Institute, has been awarded the American Chemical Society's Richards Medal for 1950. One of the highest awards in the field of chemistry, the medal is presented every two years for "conspicuous achievement." Dr. Kirkwood's most conspicuous achievements have been in the field of statistical mechanics, and its application Lind 16—MAY 1950 to chemical problems; and in the field of protein chem-istry. He has developed a new method of separating proteins-the most recent specific example of this work being the separation of that part of the human blood which contains the antibodies to disease. Dr. Kirkwood is the ninth recipient of the Richards Medal, and the third member of the Caltech faculty to win the award. Dr. A. A. Noyes, who inaugurated the Institute's program of instruction and research in chem-istry, was the first recipient. Dr. Linus Pauling, Chairman of the Division of Chemistry, received the medal in 1947. Guggenheim Fellows • WHEN THE JOHN SIMON GUGGENHEIM Memorial Foundation announced its annual awards last month, two members of the Institute were named to receive Guggenheim Fellowships for study abroad-Dr. Frank Host Dickey, Merck Research Fellow in Chemistry and Biol-ogy; and Dr. David A. Lind, Senior Research Fellow in Physics. Dr. Dickey will leave in September to spend a year which will be divided between Cambridge, Upsala, and and devoted to studying the mechanism of the formation of antibodies, enzymes and genes. Dr. Lind leaves in June for the Nobel Institute for Physics in Stockholm, and-later in the year-the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, where he will study the methods and techniques of precision nuclear spec-trosco Kenneth S. Pitzer, Caltech '35, Director of the in Washington, De Ci, also Atomied a F Cowship ton in Washington, 1950-51, for a study of the chemical applications of quantum and statistical mechanics. Though he was awarded his Guggenheim in 1946, Dr. Arthur W. Galston, Senior Research Fellow in Plant Physiology, hasn't utilized his Fellowship yet. This summer he leaves for a year at the Medical Nobel Institute in Stockholm, where he will continue his studies of the effects of light on plants. Dickey