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Vol. 68 No. 134
Battalion
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, August 4, 1976
Battalion photo by Steve Goble
Ed and Jason Crawford are just two of the many people who have
found the brick fountain in North (Question-mark) Mall a wel
come addition to the campus landscape. Since its activation, the
fountain has become a gathering-spot on its end of the campus.
Ed (the one with the hat) is a student at A&M.
illiams remains on critical list
i Dr. Jack K. Williams, President of Texas
MiM University, remains on the critical
list in Methodist Hospital in Houston.
Friday afternoon, the hospital released a
statement indicating that Williams doctors
were “encouraged by his progress. How
ever, a hospital spokesman said this morn
ing that Williams had suffered a relapse
over the weekend. He refused to elabo
rate. The spokesman said that Williams’
doctors expressed “cautious optimism
about his condition.
■"he statement Friday afternoon said that
the President’s irregular heart beat had be-
Texas A&M University officials are pre-
iictingafall enrollment of27,800 to 28,0(X)
tudents.
Such a registration would he another
record. The projected gain of at least 2,500
students would he an increase of about 10
per cent over the 1975 fall enrollment of
25,247.
• Estimates for this fall are based on the
number of new undergraduate students
approved for admission with the assump
tions that the University’s traditional
Radioactive carbon dioxide
used to trace sugar in plants
Radioactivity may be responsible for
food in your mouth someday.
Texas A&M University scientists and
engineers are using nuclear physics as the
key to unlock nature’s secrets of food prod
uction. With radioactive material and
facilities available at A&M (one of the few
places in the world), they are tracing the
genesis of growth in living plants.
“We hope to be able to understand how
the plant allocates the sugar that it makes
from carbon dioxide via photosynthesis,”
explained project director Dr. Don De-
Michele, head of the Biosystems Research
Division of the Texas Engineering Exper
iment Station (TEES) and the Department
of Industrial Engineering.
“It is important to keep in mind that once
the sugar is produced, it must be moved by
the plant from the leaves to the fruits and
root areas,” he pointed out. "This, in many
cases, can be the limiting step in producing
food,” he said. “Very little is known con
cerning how the plant moves its sugar, how
fast, how much goes to the roots, or how
much to the fruits:.”
Further, he says there are questions
such as what controls the amount that goes
to the fruit and can all that he changed. All
these questions are being considered in
this new series of experiments.
These important experiments have
never been made before by anyone, any
where to the knowledge of these re
searchers. The reason is that the study re
quires a group of bioengineers, biologists,
nuclear chemists, agronomists and
mathematicians with extensive computer
facilities and the services of a cyclotron.
The Texas A&M Cyclotron is one of the
most important research tools in high
energy physics. The facility produces
high-energy particles used for such diverse
tasks as treating cancer patients as well as
for exploring the structure of the nuclei of
atoms. The team is now using it to probe
the limits of plant growth and food produc
tion.
“High energy protons from the cyclotron
are used to produce radioactive carbon
dioxide which is fed to growing cotton
plants contained in a special growth
chamber deep in the cyclotron cave,” De-
Michele said.
“The radioactive gas is fed to the plant by
a long tube running from the accelerator
target chamber to the plant growth
chamber.”
One leaf of the test cotton plant is en
closed in a special leaf chamber into which
the carbon dioxide is introduced as a gas.
The plant takes in approximately 74 per
cent of the radioactive material which is
converted by the photosynthesis to
radioactive sucrose.
“A radiation detector is positioned, first
at the base of the leaf, until the movement
of the radioactive sugar is established, ” ex
plained biologist John Goeschl. “The de
tectors are then moved to various positions
along the stem and the velocity at which
the radioactivity moves down the stem is
measured. The intensity of this radioactiv
ity tells how much sugar is inside the
nlant
“One of the primary advantages of this
type of experiment is that it may be run
over again with the same plant, for the
carbon radioactivity is very short-lived and
disappears quickly,” he said.
In subsequent experiments, the re
searchers plan to pulse the radioactive car
bon such that these pulses of radioactivity
will be observed moving through the plant.
They plan to change the environment of
the individual fruits to see whether this has
any impact on how much of the sugar made
by the plant is carried to that fruit.
Some aspects of this research are sup
ported by the National Science Founda
tion, but much of it is being carried by the
researchers themselves. Part of the ex
perimental equipment has been built in
garages and transported to the University.
Other parts of the equipment have been
borrowed from fellow researchers.
Solar energy seminar
set Saturday at A&M
Area residents can view and examine
solar energy equipment now available for
homes and businesses at a special applied
solar energy seminar to be held in the Rud
der Center at Texas A&M University from
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7.
Dr. Peter Jenkins, Texas A&M mechan
ical engineering professor and seminar
chairman, said equipment on display dur
ing the seminar will include solar hot water
heaters; swimming pool heaters; flat plate
and concentrating collectors; and heating
and cooling equipment. The display will he
outdoors by the Rudder Center fountain.
The admission-free seminar is designed
to acquaint architects, builders, homeow
ners, business persons and other in
terested individuals in the Brazos Valley
area with solar equipment and methods
available for this part of the country.
It is sponsored by the Energy Advisory
Service for Texas, a new program of Texas
A&M’s Center for Energy and Mineral Re
sources, and by the Texas Engineering Ex
periment Station.
"Many persons think of solar energy as
an exotic energy source for sometime in the
future, Jenkins said. “Although solar
energy will become increasingly important
in the future, much solar energy equip
ment is available today to help home-
owners and business persons alleviate
some of their energy problems.
Solar energy specialists trom several
universities and private companies
throughout the Southwest will speak in
Rudder Center 701, beginning at 9 a.m.
A 90-minute lunch break will allow those
attending to view the solar equipment dis
plays and visit with the solar specialists.
Individuals are also welcome to question
the specialists at the end of the program.
Individuals attending the solar seminar
need only fill out a registration form which
will be available Saturday morning. Per
sons desiring additional information may
call the Center for Energy and Mineral
Resources at A&M at (713)'845-8025.
Progressive country
Battalion photo by Kevin Venner
Chances are that this contemporary cowboy won’t keep his hair
style under a hat,
A&M cryosurgery leader
Vet graduation Friday
come less of a problem and that his respira
tion had improved. He had been able to sit
up and take nourishment.
Williams underwent coronary bypass
surgery two weeks ago. He had undergone
cardiac surgery the previous night.
The President was admitted to
Methodist Hospital July 10 after suffering
cardiac arrest the day before while resting
at his home in College Station. Williams
was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bryan
and transferred to Methodist in Houston
by helicopter.
Surprise — enrollment up again
acceptance-enrollment and retention rates
will continue. Historically, about 70 per
cent of new students who are accepted ac
tually enroll.
Dr. Billy Gene Lay, admissions director,
said Friday approximately 7,800 new un
dergraduate students — both freshmen
apd transfers — are expected.
For the first time in recent years, the
University set a deadline, July 31, for ad
mission of new undergraduate students.
Classes begin Aug. 30.
More than 120 College of Veterinary
Medicine students will receive Texas A&M
University degrees Friday during 8 p.m.
ceremonies in Rudder Auditorium.
University of Wyoming president Dr.
William D. Carlson, a former Veterinarian
of the Year, will deliver the commence
ment address to those students ending
three continuous years of professional
work, announced Dr. George Shelton,
dean of veterinary medicine.
Carlson, president of Wyoming Univer
sity since 1968, graduated with a DVM
degree from Colorado State University in
1952 and began a general practice for a year
before accepting a position as assistant pro
fessor in the CSU small animal clinic.
He earned a master’s from Colorado
State in 1956 in conjunction with a two-
year radiology residency in human
medicine at the University of Colorado
Medical Center. He completed his formal
education by earning his doctorate from
the University of Colorado in 1958.
Carlson founded CSU’s Radiology and
Radiation Biology Department, and was
among founding members of the Educators
in Veterinary Radiological Science organi
zation and the American College of Veteri
nary Radiology.
In 1965, he served as president of the
American Veterinary Radiology Society he
helped found and two years later was
selected Veterinarian of the Year by the
American Animal Hospital Association.
The author of “Veterinary Radiology,”
now in its second edition, Carlson served
from 1971-1975 as national consultant to
the Surgeon General of the Air Force for
Veterinary Affairs.
A member of Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma
Xi honor societies, the 48-year-old ad
ministrator is on the Wyoming Interstate
Commission on Higher Education, is di
rector of the Association of Western Uni
versities and serves in the senate of the
president’s council to the American Associ
ation of State Universities and Land-Grant
Colleges.
Texas A&M University’s College of Vet
erinary Medicine has assumed a leading
position in the use of extreme cold to re
move tumors from horses’ skin.
The treatment, called cryosurgery, de
stroys tumor tissue by applying liquid ni
trogen to lower the interior of the tumor to
a chilling minus 20 degrees Centrigiade,
reports clinician Dr. Joseph R. Joyce.
Although cryosurgery is a technique that
has been in use for 130 years, it has only
recently been focused in the direction of
large animal treatment.
Since he began working on large animal
tumors three years ago, Joyce has worked
on more than 100 separate tumors involv
ing horses and cattle.
He says he is enjoying about 70 per cent
success overall.
In the cases he has followed up, Joyce
reports 74-86 per cent success among the
horses he treated and 86 per cent success in
cattle. Several of the recurring tumors
were removed after a second treatment
while the large majority of the others were
adjacent to important anatomical struc
tures, limiting use of cyrosurgery.
On large tumors, a meter is needed to
monitor the temperature inside the tissue.
Before the base of the tumor reaches minus
20, the surface temperature may dip to 150
below zero.
"That’s so cold, it burns to even touch
it, says Joyce.
The cost of the monitoring meter and the
unit with which the liquid nitrogen is
applied has been one of the major draw
backs to this treatment thus far, he said.
The advantages of cryosurgery are many,
however,” asserts Joyce.
“Minimal pain is associated with the
freezing. Little, if any, hemorrhaging oc
curs and scarring is minimal. Instruments
are easy to use and tumors can often he
treated under local anesthesia. Tumor cells
are not spread and circulating antibodies to
certain types of tumors may be stimu
lated,” he explains.
Following treatment, tumors usually dry
up and fall off within one to two weeks. The
largest tumors may require 10 weeks.
Danger to important organs, especially
the eye, remains a problem in cryosurgery,
Joyce cautions. But, he adds, some form of
insulated shield can he used to lessen or
eliminate the problem, thus avoiding per
manent eyesight damage.
College Station bike paths
to be completed in month
College Station City Engineer Elrey Ash
reported yesterday that the striping and
signing of the city’s existing bicycle path
ways is underway and should be completed
within a month.
■Ash said the hike paths have already
lieen striped, and the city staff is waiting for
the delivery of Bicycle Path and ‘No Park
ing' signs.
■He said the first shipment of signs which
were ordered in several installments
should arrive next week.
■ Ash said he hopes most of the signs can
he erected before the start of school.
■ The improvements are being financed
through the sale of a portion of the capital
improvements bonds which were ap
proved by College Station voters on June
29.
After the signs are in place, the police
department will begin ticketing vehicles
which are found parked on the bike paths,
City Manager North Bardell said yester
day.
The city has received some complaints
about vehicles parked in the bike paths,
hut Bardell said the city could not legally
enforce the no parking in bike path ordi
nance until the lanes were striped and
signed.
The following streets are involved in the
improvements: Francis Drive from Texas
Avenue to College Hills; Dominik Drive
from Munson Avenue to Merry Oaks
Drive; Kyle Avenue from Texas Avenue to
Gilchrist Avenue; south side of Jersey
Street from Wellborn Road to Texas Av
enue.
Also involved are: Glade Street from
Park Place to Southwest Parkway; both
sides of Southwest Parkway from Madison
Avenue to Welch Avenue; Southwood
Drive from Southwest Parkway to FM
2818; Walton Drive from Nunn Street to
Francis Drive.
The city has submitted an elaborate
bicycle path plan to the federal govern
ment through the Texas Highway Depart
ment. City officials are hoping to receive
federal funds to develop the plan which
involves an underpass on University Drive
and extensive off-street bike paths. Federal
help on the plan is expected within the next
year according to city officials.
Aggie Fantasticks
Battalion staff photo by Steve Goble
The MSC Dinner Theater cast of “The Fan
tasticks,’’ which ends a successful four-night
run with a performance tonight, includes (clock
wise from lower right) James Hall as Henry,
Thomas Owen as Mortimer, Boni Petersen
as Louisa, Philip Hafer as Huckleby, Bruce
Kates as Bellomy, Susan Rudd on piano, Vanes
sa Watts as The Mute, Michael Wilson as El
Gallo and Brian McPherson as Matt. See Battal
ion Reviewer B. J. Strode’s comments on the
musical, page 3.