SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
FREEZING OF BEEF. 
The report of the last year’s investigation of the Food Investigation 
Board, which was appointed by the Department of Scientific and In- 
dustrial Research, contains a great deal of matter of close interest to 
Australia. Several committees have been appointed, and between them 
they cover a wide field of work. The committee have already carried out 
valuable preliminary experiments on the freezing of beef. It is a 
remarkable fact, familiar to the industry, that, whereas mutton can 
be frozen without damage, beef cannot. The effect on freezing of the 
latter is to so alter the muscle substance as to cause the meat, on thaw- 
ing, to exude a fluid rich in nutritive material and coloured with 
hemoglobin; and new experiments prove that, provided certain pre- 
cautions are taken, beef can be frozen in such a way as to preserve 
completely the physical and chemical qualities of the fresh meat. 
The experiments were carried out with small pieces of beef, and an 
attempt to repeat them on a.commercial scale has, so far, failed for 
want of adequate apparatus. Further investigations therefore had to be 
postponed until a low temperature research station is provided. The 
Board has supplied, however, a grant of money sufficient to build 
such a station, fully equipped for biophysical and biochemical investi- 
gations at low temperature. The University of Cambridge have pre- 
sented a site for the erection of the station in close proximity to the 
Biochemical Animal Nutrition and Botany. 
MANUFACTURE OF OXYGEN. 
Research work on the manufacture of oxygen from the engineer’s 
point of view has been initiated at the Harvard University Engineering 
School. The United States of America National Research Corporation 
has granted £1,000 towards the expense of the work. A scheme of 
work is being undertaken to determine the fundamental data. It is 
believed that present methods of making oxygen are wasteful, and that 
the industrial use of oxygen furnaces may result in the elimination of 
this waste. The Engineering School has agreed to turn over to the 
Research Corporation any patents they may develop from this work. 
_ REFRIGERATION PROBLEMS. 
At the first annual conference of the Victorian Institute of Refrigera- 
tion, held in Melbourne recently, the following papers were read:— 
Refrigeration as applied to Meat Works, by Mr. R. C. Pidgeon; 
Refrigeration as applied to Bacon Factories, by Mr. B. C. Jones; The 
Treatment of Small Goods and By-products, by Mr. S. M. Letts; and 
Refrigeration as applied to By-products in the Meat Works, by Mr. 
F. J. White. 
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