Spying on Cells

If a biologist could look at a fertilized human egg-cell under a super-powerful microscope, and study it under all sorts of conditions without removing it from the body that contained it, he might be able to tell whether that cell would become a still-born child or one that would live to ripe age. The biologist cannot do that, but he is learning more & more about the nature of cells, and with each new bit of cell knowledge comes new knowledge of the nature of human beings, who are just cells multiplied and grown up. Last spring Dr. Francis Ferdinand Lucas, microscopist of Bell Telephone Laboratories, perfected an ultraviolet ray microscope capable of showing living cells in action. He set it to work photographing brain, cancer and sperm cells (TIME, March 2). Last week was tested a device to extract new cell secrets.

The Cell (protoplasm), biologists agree, is made up of two main parts: the yolk-like nucleus and the oily cytoplasm. Both nucleus and cytoplasm contain solid and liquid portions; in addition they contain further specialized units of matter: in the nucleus, membrane, nucleolus, chromosomes; in the cytoplasm, membrane, granules, vacuoles, plastids. It is the behavior of these infinitesimal units that biologists are now trying to study.

They found that centrifugal force had a marked effect on these units. It caused the granules to stratify, enabling their specific gravity and total volume to be determined. But the only method of studying the effects of centrifugal force was to whirl cells in a tube, then remove them and see what had happened. Alfred Lee Loomis, a New York banker (Bonbright & Co.) who has a private laboratory at Tuxedo Park, and Dr. Edmund Newton Harvey of Princeton University devised a microscope through which cells could be studied as they whirled. Last week they made experiments with this device, which they call a

Microscope-Centrifuge. It consists of a bar of metal mounted as a head on a centrifuge axis. Into one end of the bar is built a microscope-objective (the lower lens, system of a microscope). Above this objective is an aperture in the bar, and directly over the aperture is a light. The light illuminates a cell placed on a slide in the aperture. By an arrangement of prisms placed periscope-wise in the bar, the image of the cell is carried through the microscope-objective, to one prism, then to the other, then through the upper lens of the microscope to the eyepiece, which is directly above the axis. The bar is then rotated at the rate of 8.000 revolutions a minute, and the whirling cell at one end of the bar can be seen through the stationary eyepiece over its centre. But the image thus presented was blurred, since it was seen in motion as it passed the light. Scientists Loomis & Harvey fixed the light so that it would flash on and off, each Hash coinciding with the reappearance of the cell beneath the lamp. Thus a series of distinct, clear pictures was presented--8,000 of them to the minute, so many that the eye could not detect the periods of darkness.*

Scientists Harvey & Loomis watched cells whirl, saw the tiny granules moving through the protoplasm, oil globules going in one direction, yolk granules in another. From the rate of movement they began to calculate the viscosity (gumminess) of the protoplasm. When oil and yolk are separated they exert a pull upon the cell which divides it in two parts. By watching the course of that process the experimenters were able to estimate the tension on the surface of the cell which holds it together. That tension, they found, is at least 100 times smaller than had been supposed. Preliminary results of their tests indicate that existing ideas of some of the properties of matter within the cell will have to be revised.

Biologist Harvey and Banker Loomis are old collaborators. Two years ago they devised a chronograph to record the speed and variation of human heart beats over long periods. They have developed an ultra-rapid micro-cinema camera which photographs the "death" of cells when attacked by intense sound waves. In his Tuxedo Park laboratory Mr. Loomis has experimented for years with "super sound" waves, too rapid for the human ear to detect, which kill fish, paralyze mice, sterilize blood (TIME, Feb. 6, 1928). But electricity and physics are only a pastime with him. In 1920, with Landon K. Thome, he revivified Bonbright & Co., made it the leading private banking house to specialize in public utilities. At 44, he is also chairman of American Superpower Corp., a director of Commonwealth & Southern Corp., and Public Service Corp, of New Jersey. He was elected this year a member of the corporation of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was graduated from Yale (1909), Harvard Law School (1912), belongs to six Manhattan clubs. But he spends most of his spare time in his laboratory, which is often full of Yale, Harvard, Princeton professors working on scientific projects. No commercial experiments are performed there. He cruises on his yacht; golfs and tennises adeptly. Medium-sized, with sharp dark eyes and brown curly hair, Banker Loomis likes to look like a businessman, dislikes the publicity given to his scientific work. He has three children, all boys: Alfred Lee Jr., 18; William Farnsworth, 16; Henry, 13.

* In cinemataphotography, pictures flash on the screen at the rate of 960 per minute.

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