Synthetic Life

"There is nothing occult or supernatural in the processes of life, and eventually we will unravel its secret. Protoplasm is nothing but a chemical compound. I see no reason why some day we shall not be able to produce it. When we do so it may be living or it may be dead, no one can say." --Dr. Paul Renno Heyl, 57, physicist in charge of the Sound Laboratory of the U. S. Bureau of Standards,* before the Science Forum of the New York Electrical Society last week.

The progress of organic chemistry since Friedrich Woehler (1800-28) discovered how to make urea 102 years ago, and particularly the great advances of biochemistry during the past decade, have made Dr. Heyl's prophecy sound authentic. Specifically remarkable was last year's synthesizing by Professor Hans Fischer of Munich of the vehicle which is essential in the process of transporting oxygen from the red blood cells to the body tissues (TIME, Jan. 7).

* His father, Henry Renno Heyl, invented the phasmatrope (1870), a predecessor of moving picture machines.

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