The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 14

SUNDAY, APRIL 12. 196-1 PAGE 14 SLC. 1 TUT INDIANAPOLIS STAR nosi: poly pho.ikct MM -I i I v. iology, Engineering Link Tightens Lf-" 1 I Til 1 to live longer than your ancestors, in pretty complete comfort, then you should cheer the professors at such schools as Rose Polytechnic Institute at Terre Haute. The school is helping to spearhead the move to relate biology and engineering.

The field of study is over- By HELEN CONNOR You may have the idea that biology is one thing and engineering another. It used to be. But since World War II biology and engineering have become as clubby as a couple of Beatles. More harmonious, too. AND IF YOU would like -i I-.

J'" even as astronauts do. To supply oxygen the students inserted algae, an ocean form of plant life. The idea is that if the algae furnishes enough oxygen so that the astronaut can breathe, this might prove doubly convenient since algae also can be used for food, (if you do not much care what you eat.) is firmly believed that all the ideas born of seeking to orbit capsules, or reach the moon, eventually will be applied to better our life here on earth. Turning to another area of this field of study you are confronted with "bionics" and the fact that despite the i SEMI-ANNUAL XL what has been learned the farmers keep patiently taking pround out of production and then growing a lot more grain than the I'nited States can pet rid of on the patches that are left. The term, applied biology, sounds pretty good until you discover they want to throw in such subtitles as microscopic, mascroscopic, fermentation engineering and agricultural engineering.

The whole field of study is so new, in fact, that there is still some argument about what it should be called. What the thing amounts to is the application of the known facts of biology to the science of engineering, and a reverse application of engirt i g's achievements to biology. WHAT MAKES IT such a surprising combination is that biology, in its simplest aspect, is the study of living organisms while engineering is concerned with the opposite: structures, machines and manufactured products. Dr. Robert M.

Arthur, the associate professor in charge of imparting the information in this field to the engineers-to-be at Rose Polytechnic Institute, is convinced that "bioscience bioengineering" is probably the best title. Rose took its first nibble into the field with some seminars in 1953. A temporary committee on STUDIO REPL ACEMEMT (Star Photo) ROSE POLYTECHNIC PROFESSOR, STUDENTS EXPERIMENT Left to Right: Dr. Robert M. Arthur, Robert McCoige, Jack Cox 8MB PIANOS and seminars.

There is a move afoot to have Rose students do work at Methodist in th summer. In setting up this complicated academic program, Rose Polytechnic has started at the graduate level, as have the other schools introducing it. This year a continuing series of seminars at Rose includes the nation's most eminent men in the newly coalesced field of study. The whole seminar series is expected to be published at its conclusion. entered the field, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Stanford universities, State Uni-versity of Iowa and the University of Michigan, have medical schools which co-operate with their schools of engineering.

ROSE POLY, to overcome this problem, has joined forces with Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. The school's professors and students attend seminars at the hospital, while the hospital sends its staff doctors to the school for conferences and applied biology and bioengineering was formed last spring. A permanent committee, with members from all departments, has been named since and courses in the biological area set up, making the school among the first to enter the field. Rose Poly in this instance simply is fulfilling the high esteem in which it is held, for on the average each Rose graduate has more than four job offers from which to choose. Other schools which have ORGANS Brand-New GUARANTEE im TO sell AT Substantial DISCOUNTS! laid with a ig of technical terms.

One of the problems has been to arrive at the point where the engineers know what the biologists (and medical men) are talking about, and the biologists for their part to grasp the meaning of the words used by engineers. Biology and engineering are joined in a four-faceted field of endeavor. From the section known as "biomedical engineering" are coming such things as machines which measure body functions. Today, much as an airplane pilot watches the instrument panel in flight, the doctors can read on a panel the reactions of the body of the patient to surgery. AT A TIME when "family doctors" seem to be going out of fashion, it is possible for a physician unfamiliar with the case to take all of the patient's known medical history and current data from tests, feed it to a computer and achieve an accurate diagnosis.

This area of research also includes all present efforts to employ man-made substitutes for failing vital organs of the body. The much talked of "pacemaker" which can be inserted in the patient's chest to regulate the beat of the ailing heart and the artificial larynx have resulted. Included also are such items as hearing aids, reading machines for the blind, oxygen tents in fact all the "machinery" used so successfully by medical science is the result of biomedical engineering. NOT TO BE forgotten are the experiments to make your auto more death-proof in case of an accident and, on the other hand, to figure out how much it takes to kill you. Then there is the matter of making the surroundings in which we live more healthful.

This division is called "enviornmental health engineering." Air conditioners are one result. Efforts to eliminate noise, such as sound-proof tiles, are another. Machinery to keep temperatures even, to clean up air pollution, to end water pollution are others. Under this research America got the remarkable work done by the engineers and doctor-biologists on the astronauts' capsules. The experts like to speak of a close ecological system which only means that the man in the orbiting capsule is a captive.

The rest of us down here on earth are in an open system, able to move from one spot to another without death overtaking us, unless we step out of a building into the path of a truck with bad brakes. (This area of study inspired the Rose Poly Technic students to set up a "closed system" in which they substituted bacteria for an astronaut. Bacteria was chosen because it needs oxygen, tendency of mankind to congratulate itself on its accomplishments, nature does everything better. For generations the intellectually curious biologists, with no particular encouragement from anybody, have been peering through their microscopes in a kind of detective-gone-mad atmosphere, seeking to get the full story of nature's complex activities. This is no easy task since nature is pretty busy and cannot stand around waiting for the biologists to complete such long-standing arguments as to whether the smallest living organism is a cell, or a part of a cell.

HOWEVER, the biologists have turned up some excel- i lent information; for instance, that bats have an audio-location system that allows them to tell by sound where they are. Now this would be a jolly addition to a "homing rocket" on its way to the moon or a jet airliner on its way to San Francisco. The engineers are urging the biolog- ists to find out how it works so the engineers can have a go at copying it. The biologists have figured out the network of nerves that makes up the brain. The engineers, looking over their shoulders, are swiping nature's idea and putting it in computers.

They already have a computer (made to resemble a mouse) which will correct itself. If it goes the wrong way first public announcement of Every six months we re-equip our studios with brand new pianos and organs. Ail instruments that have been used for demonstration and teaching must therefore be sold quickly at SENSATIONAL REDUCTIONS! 9 weJ 2s Up First in Style" 3708 E. 38th ST. DEMONSTRATORS ir TEACHING ORGANS PRACTICE PIANOS J10 DELIVERS Includes complete course of private lessons at NO EXTRA COST! in a maze and gets lost, when NOW during this sale, is the only time you can buy a WURLITZER ORGAN 5 WBK 5 for less than the nationally advertised price! DAILY: THURS.

started the next time it never takes the same wrong turning again. (What happens if it ambles into a cat they didn't say.) THESE ARE ONLY TWO of the amazing inventions of nature that man for all of his imaginative genius would do well to copy for his brick-and concrete world. And if there is any question about how much a man needs to know to dabble in this one area of bionics, look at Lt. Col. Jack Steele of the Air Force's Wright-Patterson Air Base.

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