KILAUEA ERUPTS, FULFILLING PREDICTION

"Kilauea flashed into magnificent eruption at 1:00 a.m. Hawaii time (6:30 a.m. Eastern Standard time) this morning."

This radiogram, received in Washington by the U.S. National Park Service on Wednesday, February 20, fulfills in spectacular fashion the prediction of Dr. T.A. Jaggar of Volcano House, Hawaii, government volcanologist, that an eruption might be expected this year. The prediction was published in the Science News-Letter on February 2, and has been made good in less than a month's time by the volcano on whose rim Dr. Jaggar has lived, watching for more than half a generation. The volcano itself is a ward of the United States government, as it is a part of Hawaii National Park.

GERMAN SYNTHESIZES RESPIRATION FERMENT

The respiration ferment, described as ruling the organic world, has been produced artificially in the laboratory by Prof. Hans Fischer of Munich, who has thus made one of the most important contributions in the history of biochemistry, the chemistry of living matter. His achievement is far-reaching and may lead to isolation of the vitamins themselves.

Prof. Fischer's work confirms the research of Dr. Otto Warburg, who last year demonstrated the nature and role of this important ferment. The respiration ferment is a hemin compound and its synthesis makes possible the artificial production of hemoglobin, the red coloring matter of the blood. In the higher animals, hemoglobin is a transport agency for oxygen, carrying it from one place in the body to another. But the respiration ferment is a substance which takes up the atmospheric oxygen, which was transported by the hemoglobin, and transfers it to certain organic substances which in turn become oxidized. The respiration ferment or enzyme rules the organic world, because in everything that happens in living matter, respiration furnishes the driving force. It is found in all living cells.

FUTURE METAL SUPPLY DOUBTFUL

The world's metal supplies in the rocks of the earth are showing signs of failing and experts are worried over whether the most efficient applications of science and technology can keep pace with the demands of coming generations. This state of low supplies in the mineral cupboards of the future was revealed to the meeting of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers in New York, when D.F. Hewett, geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey, discussed the production of metals in Europe during the last 300 years.

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