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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 1978)
mmm i ex man ling- bout The itate hich >ns. ;tors )uth day. ;oon oins ship THE BATTALION Page 3 THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1978 pon es of mut- e in- se is igh construction costs make sub-surface homes, businesses popular Complete Line of Used Books. ROTHER’S BOOKSTORE 340 Jersey — At the Southgate High utilities and construction sts are driving folks up the wall and may soon drive them under- >wer ig a tion. ; her it an the nger its la, it lifor- ;den, mea- ; the One solution being adopted by increasing numbers of people is sub-surface homes. Homes, housing developments, even business complexes may be leaded underground, where com- ort can be had for lower cost. Preparation for the move is jlanned at Texas A&M University, through an Earthshelter Research facility. The project, by Texas &M’s Texas Engineering Experi ment Station, will provide for test ing of sub-surface construction ma- |erials, techniques and practices. It relies on the expertise of civil ngineers Bob Callaway, Dr. Dale Webb and Gary Sorensen. Underground house plans range from completely underground living space to partly buried homes—to let in light and breezes--to earth- mound techniques. History shows man has long known the benefits of living under ground, Webb said. At depths near 30 feet, a six-month lag occurs be tween air and soil temperatures. It is coolest there during the hottest part of the year and warmest in the winter. “The only way we can solve the problems and learn sub-surface con struction is to get down among the elements and do it,” Webb said. “When something is built, we can study the temperatures, humidities, air flow rates, condensation and Chemist copies nature’s way ground temperature factors.” The facility they plan will utilize a tract of almost 11 acres at Texas A&M Research Extension Center in Bryan. Contoured to a plan devised by Sorensen and Webb, it will fea ture groups of excavation sites on which “earthhomes” or “earthshel- ters” can be constructed and tested. The site is next to the Heavy Equipment Training Division of the Texas Engineering Extension Serv ice, another unit of Texas A&M. TEES trainees will cut excavations and a holding pond, using spoil to build a sound-blocking, wind channeling and view-enhancing berm around the acreage. “It’s typical, flat Texas terrain, like is found in Houston and Dal las,” Sorensen said. “As is, it has a good view to the south but buildings make it unspectacular in other di rections.” Scott receives grant to continue research Dr. A. Ian Scott of Texas A&M University has received a $62,353 National Science Foundation grant to continue his basic research into copying natural processes that pro- ,duce vitamins, hormones and pro tein. Such processes can be duplicated in the laboratory, Scott explains, but must rely on an enzyme catalyst that does not naturally occur in the living tissue. “We re not trying to create life in a test tube here,” Scott said. “We fust want to copy the same processes nature uses in making vitamins, hormones, antibiotics and protein without interjecting an outside enzyme. “Nature has a machinery for mak ing these things and we are trying to copy nature,” said Scott, one of the world’s foremost organic chemists. “This is a very primitive model we re evolving,” he noted. “We’re a long way from using DNA in this research. Right now, we are using a simpler polymer from one of the basic elements in genetic material.” Studies by Scott and his research team are just now becoming fully operational at Texas A&M following his move here last year from Yale University. House votes conservatively on emotional social issues United Press International WASHINGTON — The House said “no” to abortions for the poor, no” to hiring quotas for minorities, and “yes” to an across-the-board cut of $1.8 billion before approving $56 billion for the Labor and HEW De partments next year. The conservative stands on two of the most emotional social issues in the country promised another long, hard fight with the Senate before f final enactment of the bill financing the two departments for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. On a 212-198 vote, the House re jected a compromise proposal that could have headed off another long abortion battle with the Senate. In stead it insisted poor women receive federally funded abortions only if the continued pregnancy would threaten their lives. In addition, the House voted 232-177 for an amendment blocking use of federal funds to draft or im plement programs setting broad J targets, numerical goals or timeta bles to increase minority college ! enrollment and minority hiring or promotion. The House last week cut $1 bil lion from the HEW budget to encourage a war on fraud, waste and abuse in its programs, and Tuesday it pared another $800 million as a cost-cutting measure before giving final approval to the combined bill on a 338-61 vote. On a 287-122 vote, the House de feated an amendment by Rep. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, to strike all restric tions on federally funded abortions and give poor women the same ac cess to legal abortions as wealthier women who can afford them. Then the House defeated, 212- 198, an amendment by Democratic Leader Jim Wright of Texas to sub stitute the compromise language in current law that settled last year’s abortion dispute. That language now permits feder ally funded abortions in cases of rape and incest if the attacks are re ported to law officers or public health authorities, and to women who would suffer “severe and longlasting” health damage by con tinuing the pregancy. Anti-abortionists argued the law has been interpreted too liberally by HEW and resulted in too many abortions. WORKSHORMKEGJMWAT'IGII BEGINS oUBQHl OS steri^l Using i" 1 * I on, Bo-i: Te**s ' *1 clusively® , ; credit e,e nSl on. * A MACKAME. CKOCUET WATEKCO-O*. BATIK - BASKETS jEu/oey por 5TAIUEP dtLASS - AHIMA PAIMTIU4 Debt)' £<ymzK emameu u <3 AND ! ■tf! CO,.^ loro/^l :&Kssr<£)i Perimeter buildup with dirt from homesites and the “lake” will block undesired views and provide wind control. On the north side the earth airfoil will send the winter wind up and over homesites. “A gentle slope on the southern side will feature broader breaks to accelerate summer breezes and cause them to swirl around inside,” Sorensen pointed out on a plan view. Building sites are planned to match natural slope drainage, to remove water by gravity from around the structures. No buildings are now planned. “But we ll have an area on which we tN/ can probally interest builders and N. contractors in testing earthshel- N ters, Webb said. S. “At the worst it will be refilled as a heavy equipment training project,” he smiled. 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