Significant Achievements in Space Bioscience 1958-1964United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Science
Significant Achievements in Space Bioscience 1958-1964
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Biology; Space flight
An instrument is under development by Wald at the University of
Pittsburgh to automatically analyze cytogenetic material and, thus,
extend cytogenetic methodology both for research and as a biological
monitoring procedure, using automatic electronic scanning and computer
analysis of chromosomes. Chromosomal aberrations can thus be monitored
under unusual and abnormal conditions such as weightlessness and
radiation, since chromosomes are very sensitive to stress situations. In
this device a sample will be prepared and automatically inserted under a
microscope lens. The device will then scan, identify, and photograph on
35-mm film a predetermined number of mitotic cells and process the film.
The data will be recorded under the direct control of a digital
computer. The computer will perform a detailed quantitative analysis of
the pictorial data.
Significant effort has been expended in the development of
instrumentation for measuring and recording electrophysiological
information. One such instrument, developed by the Franklin Institute,
Philadelphia, Pa., is a temperature-sensing microprobe. This microprobe
is an implantable and remote broadcasting instrument. These developments
are associated, in part, with training programs so that competent
individuals may be trained not only in electronics but also in the
biological uses of the devices they construct.
A project of interest, conducted at the Stanford Research Institute, is
the investigation of the uses of an extremely sensitive method for
measuring magnetic susceptibility having the possibility of detecting
macroscopic quantum effects in macromolecules of biological interest.
Good progress has been made in the first 15 months of a project devoted
to the development and initial use of equipment specifically designed
for this purpose. A new superconducting circuit, together with
superconducting magnetic shields, has been constructed. This apparatus
can measure the magnetic susceptibility of small organic samples at
temperatures between 1° and 300° K in fields up to 40 000 gauss. It can
detect flux changes of 10⁷ gauss-cm², which is equivalent to detecting a
change in specific susceptibility of 1 in 10⁹ in a 100-mg sample under
an applied field of 10 000 gauss.
Several hundred preliminary measurements were made on samples of
coronene. The most reliable of these were in agreement with published
values of the magnetic susceptibility of coronene. Experience during
these measurements led to changes which have resulted in an apparatus
well suited to the measurements on macromolecules. An improved version
of the superconducting circuit now available shows promise of a further
improvement in sensitivity by a factor of more than a thousand
([ref.166]).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account