ijo Miracles Ahead! 



the redwood, is used as a wool blender in blankets, heavy- 

 duty coats, and felt hats. Combinations of rayon and wool and 

 of peanuts and wool have produced excellent textiles. 



Women's coats are being made from Aralac, a "wool" that 

 never was near a sheep. Aralac comes from casein, the protein 

 in milk, and is made by the National Dairy Products Com- 

 pany (interesting name for a textile firm?). The proteins, 

 which contain amino-acid building blocks, are being juggled 

 around just as chemists juggle (and rearrange) the hydro- 

 carbon building blocks in coal and petroleum. Wool is a 

 protein. Hence, if the amino acids in casein are assembled as 

 they are in wool, the chemist gets a synthetic wool that is 

 warm and soft and costs about half as much as the natural 

 product. 



The use of melamine resins and other plastics may give us 

 paper shirts and other articles that will be attractive but so 

 cheap that we can throw them away when soiled. 



Postwar Predictions 



Let us now spotlight some of the developments in chem- 

 istry, and see what they will mean to you in postwar years. 



Light metals, plastic bonded plywood, plastics, and other 

 materials will revolutionize home construction and give us 

 better homes at lower cost. Probably the most impressive ad- 

 vances to be achieved directly or indirectly by chemical 

 research and engineering will be in the field of transportation. 

 Huge luxury air liners, and cargo planes; light, low-cost fam- 

 ily planes, and rotary-wing craft; and better automobiles 

 all will be made possible by the advances in metallurgy, high- 

 octane fuels, plastics, and other fields of research. The rail- 

 roads will compete with other forms of transportation by 

 using aluminum, magnesium, and light-alloy steels for pas- 

 senger and freight cars which will weigh far less, move at 



