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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1968)
Averell Harriman, left, and Llewellyn Thompson, center, of the United States and North Vietnam’s Xuyan Thuy, right are scheduled to meet in Paris in preliminary negotations looking toward a peace conference on Vietnam. (AP Wirephoto) A&M Meteorologists Want To Know Why It Rains Don’t be alarmed, folks, if you’re sprinkled this month with a few icicles—Christmas tree variety. Santa’s not on an early ram page; it’s merely Texas A&M meteorologists at work, enhanc ing their knowledge of what makes it rain. Dr. Bernice Ackerman, associ- f+M On Campus with MaxShulman (By the author of “Rally Round the Flag, Boys!", ‘Dobie Gillis," etc.) FROM THE HALLS OF PROTOZOA This column, normally a treasure house of twinkly quips and slapdash japery, has now been appearing in your campus newspaper for fourteen years, and if I have learned one thing in these fourteen long years, it is not to try to be funny in the last column of the semester. With final exams looming obscenely close, you don’t want jokes; you want help. So today, foregoing levity, I give you a quick cram course in the subject you are all flunking. I refer, of course, to biology. Biology is divided into several phylla, or classes. First is the protozoa, or one-celled animal. Protozoa can be taught simple things like bringing in the newspaper, but when shopping for pets it is best to look for animals with at least two cells, or even four if your yard has a fence around it. Another popular class of animals is the periphera—a shadowy category that borders often on the vegetable. Take, for example, the sponge. The sponge is definitely an animal. The wash-cloth, on the other hand, is definitely not. Next we come to the arthropoda, or insects. Most people find insects unattractive, but actually there is exquisite beauty in the insect world if you trouble to look. Take, for instance, the lovely insect poems of William Cullen Sigaioos—Tumbling Along with the Tumbling Tumblebug and Fly Gently, Sweet Aphid and Gnats My Mother Caught Me. Mr. Sigafoos, alas, has been inactive since the invention of DDT. Our next category is the mollusca—lobsters, shrimp, and the like. Lobsters are generally found under rocky projec tions on the ocean bottom. Shrimps are generally found in a circle around a small bowl containing cocktail sauce. Personna Super Stainless Steel Blades are generally found at any counter where Personna Super Stainless Steel Blades are sold. I mention Personna Blades because the makers of Per sonna Blades pay me to write this column, and they are inclined to get edgy if I neglect to mention their product. Some get double edgy and some single, for Personna Blades come both in double edge style and Injector style. Mind you, it is no burden for me to mention Personna, for it is a blade that shaves quickly and cleanly, slickly and keenly, scratchlessly and matchlessly. It is a distinct pleas ure to shave with Personna Blades and to write about them but sometimes, I confess, I find it difficult to work the commercial into a column. Some years ago, for ex ample, I had the devil’s own time working a Personna plug into a column about Alexander the Great. The way I finally managed it was to have Alexander say to the Oracle at Delphi, “Oracle, I have tasted all the world’s pleasures, yet I am not content. Somehow I know there is a joy I have missed.” To which the Oracle replied, “Yes, Alexander, there is such a joy—namely Personna Blades—but, alas for you, they will not be invented for another 2500 years.” Whereupon Alexander fell into such a fit of weeping that Zeus finally took pity and turned him into a hydrant . . . Well sir, there is no question I sold a lot of Personnas with this ingenious commercial, but the gang down at the American Academy of Arts and Letters gave me a mighty good razzing, you may be sure. But I digress. Back to biology and the most advanced phyllum of all—the chordata, or vertebrates. There are two kinds of vertebrates: those with vertical backbones and those with horizontal. Generally it is easy to tell them apart. A fish, for instance, has a horizontal backbone, and a man has a vertical backbone. But what if you run into a fish that swims upright or a man who never gets out of the sack? How do you tell them apart? Science struggled with this sticky question for years before Sigafoos of M.I.T came up with his brilliant solution: offer the crea ture a pack of Personna Blades. If it is a fish, it will refuse. If it is homo sapiens, it will accept—and the more sapient, the quicker. And now you know biology. And now, for the fourteenth time, aloha. * * * ©1968, Max Shulman The makers of Personna, The Electro-Coated blade, have enjoyed bringing you another year of Old Max. From us too, aloha. ate professor heading the icicle dropping phase of a series of air borne meteorolgical tests, said her prime objective is determination of wind variations in the vicinity of clouds. She said university weathermen will be dropping packets—each containing as many as a million tinsels varying in length up to two inches—to see how the ma terial disperses in the air. The packets open when dropped from the plane, releasing the icicles which are then tracked by radar on the A&M campus, Dr. Ackerman explained. “Initially, the material shows up on radar as one big spot, almost like the ‘echo’ of an air plane,” she noted. “As the par ticles spread out, they look more like a cloud.” The pattern of the falling tin sels helps provide wind variation and velocity data. Use of tin foil in aircraft-radar operations is an old trick. Air Force pilots have used it to con fuse enemy radar operators dur ing raids. Texas A&M’s first test was conducted in clear skies to check the technique. Dr. Ackerman said the experiment produced “excel lent results.” “When suitable weather condi tions exist, we will drop two or three packets in the near vicinity of a cloud and simply track the particles,” she noted. “From this, we will make certain inferences as to the motion of the air, and the differences in speeds of wind and adjacent clouds.” This information, the lady pro fessor added, will be correlated inside the cloud for data such as temperature, humidity and water content. Results of the icicle-dropping experiments should add some weight to one of two theories about wind - cloud interactions: that most of the wind merely moves through the clouds, or that most of the wind moves around the clouds. The two theories result in dif ferent concepts of cloud develop ment and different patterns and amounts of water distribution within the clouds, she observed. Dr. Ackerman noted that the Federal Aviation Agency office in Houston will be notified prior to each experiment to avoid any pos sible radar confusion. Most of the tests will be con ducted over an area between Houston and College Station, using a twin-engine aircraft fur nished by the National Center for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colo. PARDNER You’ll Always Win The Showdown When You Get Your Duds Done At CAMPUS CLEANERS Indiana Primary RFK, HHH Get First Tryout WASHINGTON <A>) — Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey get their first tryouts at the polls Tuesday in their quest for the Democratic presidential nomi nation. The New York senator is a formal contestant in two of the day’s five primaries, while Hum phrey is represented in only one but is a standout background fig ure in the other. The big test is in Indiana. There Humphrey is not a candi date of record but neither Hum phrey nor Gov. Roger D. Branigin has not been notably successful in silencing talk about Branigin’s favorite-son race as a Humphrey front. INDIANA also provides the first full-scale trial of voting booth strength between Kennedy and Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota, the third Democratic White House aspirant. And the votes of both will be measured against the shadow candidacy of Humphrey. Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon is alone on the Indiana Republican ballot. But his back ers concentrated on opposition to a campaign by the Democrats for crossover ballots that could cut into Nixon’s showing as a vote getter. THE SECOND and more direct Kennedy-Humphrey collision is in the District of Columbia where two slates of candidates for dele gate to the party’s national con vention are running for the vice president while one slate backs GUIDELINES GIVEN ON WHAT’S ART TEMPLE, Ariz. (A*) — Arizona State University officials have set forth stringent new gguidelines on what constitutes an art exhibit after closing one recently. Gilbert Cady, the school vice president, said an ebhixit on the mall was closed, after health offi cials declared that a decayed horse’s head, which attracted nu merous flies, posed a serious health hazard to the entire cam pus. Kennedy. On the Republican side in the national capital there is a con test between an agreed regular slate divided among backers bf Nixon, Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York—the second major avowed GOP candidate—and a rival group, running together but still split in allegiance to Nixon, Rockefeller and Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, who still talks about himself as only a favorite son. There are 23 Democratic and nine Republican convention votes at stake. The other primaries are in Ohio, Florida and Alabama, with only Democrats involved in Ala- Special School For Policemen Set May 20-21 A special school for law en forcement officers in the use of scientific aids for controlling civil disturbances is set May 20-21 at Texas A&M. Ira Scott, coordinator of police training, said 25 policemen and campus security officers from all areas of the state are expected for the course at A&M’s Research Annex west of Bryan. Principal lecturer will be Harry Wells, an employee of federal laboratories at Saltsburg, Pa. Wells is a former superintendent in charge of police training and riot control in Hong Kong. Assisting Wells will be David Betts, owner of the Safety and Enforcement Equipment Supply Company in Dallas. Betts is a former staffer of A&M‘s Police Training Division. Scott said the speakers will show officers how to handle scientific aids for activating smoke bombs and tear gas effec tively to quell disturbances with out causing undue injury. A&M’s Police Training Divi sion is a branch of the Engineer ing Extension Service. bama. In all those cases the bear ing of the outcome on presidential politics is questionable. In Indiana McCarthy and Ken nedy kept going under a full head of steam Monday. But Branigin spent most of the day in his office. OBVIOUSLY their main target was a reportedly big percentage of the Hoosier voters who are waiting right up to ballot mark ing time to make up their minds. Kennedy appears as the man with most at stake, relying on Indiana to get his nomination drive fully off the ground. And his backers appear the most worried about the possibility of a big crossover of Republican votes. McCarthy has been discounting Indiana’s real significance. INDIANA HAS 63 Democratic convention votes and 26 Republi can but their apportionment will be decided later. They may go to the statewide primary winner for the first ballot or be divided among the districts. Humphrey stayed away from the Indiana campaign. Sunday he was in Chicago where he failed to pick up an endorsement from Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner but did get a boost from Chicago Demo cratic committeeman Jacob Ar- vey. Monday he was in New York for a meeting with businessmen backers and returned to Washing ton for a speech to a labor group. FARM & HOME SAVINGS ASSOCIATION Home Office: Nevada, Mo. 3523 Texas Ave. (in Ridgecrest) 846-3708 BUSIEK AGENCY REAL ESTATE • INSURANCE F.H.A.—Veterans and Conventional Loans THE PIZZA HUT 2610 Texas Ave. Call 822-1441 Allow 20 Minutes Carry Out or Eat-In 317 Patricia NEED CASH Money Gone After 9 Months of School? Then see us for a personal loan. Take advantage of our prompt, confidential loan service now. UNIVERSITY LOAN COMPANY (North Gate) College Station, Texas Telephone: 846-8319 ! AT BILL CROCKETT'S SERVICE CENTER 500 GALLONS FLITE-FUEL GASOLINE FREE 301 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE STATION Each week during May, 50 LUCKY car owners willwin lOgallonsof FLITE-FUEL GASOLINE. 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