10 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



Menzel, director of the Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, 

 Mass. This illustrated lecture, on the subject "The Edge of the Sun," 

 will be published in full in the general appendix of the Annual Report 

 of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1956. 



John K. Marshall, of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass., 

 showed his color film "The Hunters — African Bushmen" before a 

 large audience in the Natural History Building auditorium on the 

 evening of February 9, 1956. This showing was under the joint 

 sponsorship of the Smithsonian Institution and the Anthropological 

 Society of Washington. 



Prof. Millar Burrows, chairman of the Department of Near Eastern 

 Languages, Yale University Graduate School, delivered his lecture on 

 "The Dead Sea Scrolls" before an overflow audience in the Natural 

 History Building on the evening of February 29, 1956. This lecture 

 was sponsored jointly with the Archaeological Institute of America. 



Dr. Gunnar Thorson, of the Zoological Museum, Copenhagen, Den- 

 mark, on the evening of May 10, 1956, lectured on the subject "The 

 Relationship Between Prey and Predator on the Sea Bottom" in the 

 auditorium of the Natural History Building. This was one of a series 

 of lectures that this distinguished foreign scientist delivered in 

 America that season. 



Several lectures were also sponsored by the Freer Gallery of Art and 

 the National Gallery of Art. These are listed in the reports of these 

 bureaus. 



BIO-SCIENCES INFORMATION EXCHANGE 



The Bio-Sciences Information Exchange continued during the year 

 under the directorship of Dr. Stella L. Deignan. This agency operates 

 within the Smithsonian Institution under funds made available to the 

 Institution by other governmental agencies. By performing the 

 unique function of effecting an exchange of information on work just 

 beginning or not yet published, it serves as a clearinghouse for current 

 research in the biological, medical, and psychological sciences. Its 

 services are provided, free of charge, to investigators associated with 

 recognized research institutions in the United States and abroad. 



The body of information within the Exchange now consists of brief 

 abstracts of over 10,000 active research projects and of a somewhat 

 greater number of summary statements on investigations which are 

 no longer current. The studies registered with the Exchange are for 

 the most part being carried out in laboratories in the United States. 



Requests for information on work in scientific fields come to the 

 Exchange from granting agencies, committees, and from individual 

 investigators. For the first two groups, detailed surveys of current 

 work in broad fields are provided ; for the individual investigator the 

 service is limited to information on work on one or a series of specifi- 



