The greatest advance these children wil

| see will be in the conquest of disease.

@ What changes will half a century bring?

Scientists look ahead
to the year 2008

Te
. to Cation, Soviet
“ading Y, recently asked
Many fie] viet scientists in
“entuy Ms to look half a
“Ome ay €ad and present
Will face € problems that
those who are child-

Ten

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ftom 4 **?€re are the replies
Wo of them: se

Academy: « bod Og
AY ‘lan V. Englehardt

. that "horoughly convinced
“tow leading branch of
"Ul yy ge in the 2ist century
ey. Physical and chemical
Ove their rapid forward
“Ve Bene exact sciences
» nani Ww attention mainly
“tudy sete nature. Now the
Bb increas the animate world
“act, Bly becoming an
tang “ence, due to the con-
Dhysin Wider use made of
atiog » Chemistry and mathe-
‘tings ™ the study of living

» the

Energy nest dreams of many
“ap: if Was to prolong
wVaneine and we are steadily
‘hous & towards this goal,
Shou ge as fast as we
on ee © to. In one genera-
ae : Be rase length of life
bots fe by at least 20
ithe Ng to our conquest
Fase. “aor germ-produced

Ree, :
ati Peatest victory we are
h the © expect from science

€ar future is the dis-

covery of the nature of can-
cer, and how to combat this
terrible scourge.

Even the most conservative
experts say this victory should
be won in 20 years. So even
before 50 years have passed,
mankind will begin to forget
the menace of cancer as it
has forgotten the menace of
smallpox.

4S

We spend a third of our life
sleeping, when regeneration
of the nerve-cell tissue takes
place, a “charging” of the
nervous system, so to speak.
The products of the vital ac-
tivity of the nerve cells, “‘fa-
tigue toxins,” are neutralized.

When chemists have learn-
ed the nature of the “fatigue
substances” and how they are

Soviet scentists predict that constant research and the
new discoveries it produces in the biochemical sciences will
enable man to overcome the scourge of cancer within a
conservative estimate of 20 years and to add years to the

produced, they will find ways
either of making the sub-
stances harmless or checking
them. The benefits of eight
hours sleep will be achieved
in an hour or two.

Reducing sleep in this way
means to lengthen a person’s
life by 20 to 30 years by utiliz-
ing the “internal reserves.”

The intervention of physics

and chemistry in genetics may
bring in the next few decades
most remarkable, perhaps

astounding, — results.

The most vital riddle of con-
temporary biology is the rid-
dle of heredity — how in the

embroyo are combined the
traits of the parents, the
“heredity information” trans-

mitted to the offspring.

Today scientists are coming
increasingly closer to finding
out the chemical nature of
the substances which pass on
this “hereditary information.”
One need not bean idle opti-
mist to believe that 50 years
from now the “biological
code’ — the chemical coding
of hereditary characteristics—
will be deciphered and read.

When that time comes man
will become the absolute ruler
of living nature.

x $e; X

Academician, S. Volkovich

ROWTH accelerators make

it possible, among other
things, to produce two crops
of potatoes a year.

Today only a few substances
which accelerate growth are
used, but in time there will
be scores of them or hun-
dreds.

Most of the stimulants have
a remarkable property; if the
dose is very large the stimu-
lant becomes an “inhibitor.”
It keeps potatoes in storage
from germinating for a long
time, and it does not let un-
ripe fruits drop from the
tree.

Chemistry can still do in-
finitely more for agricultural
production, by discovering
the secrets of photosynthesis.

With the productive forces
already developed, I can say
confidently that 20,000 or 30,-
000 million people can. be as-
sured their food on Earth.
And by the time this figure
is reached production possi-
bilities will be immeasurably
greater still. -

life of every human being by reducing needed hours of sleep
from the accepted eight to perhaps two or three. New sources
of food and new methods of producing it will enable the
worlg to feed its greatly increased population.

mt |

ESTEE