If the qualitative and quantitative fluctuations in the intensity of solar radiations have such a strong influence upon the human organism, they must affect the biochemical and biophysical processes occurring in the cells of insects and other organisms, and they must also affect, directly as well as indirectly, via weather changes, the rhythm and character of proliferation of pests, which sometimes reaches the magnitude of mass invasions.
The experiments with colloid solutions reported by the Italian scientist G. Piccardi are of considerable interest. When a colloid was poured into ordinary vessels sediments occasionally settled out within a short time. In other vessels, shielded by metal covers which prevented cosmic rays and solar radiations from reaching the solution, colloids were preserved for over a year. Accurate examination of all environmental. factors proved that the colloid solution was affected by cosmic factors, in other words, the momentum of solar activity. In the course of these studies it was established that disintegration of colloids occurred most intensively during periods of maximum solar activity, especially with the appearance of large groups of sunspots through the central solar meridian.* We now know that it is impossible to understand the functions of an organism without exposing the molecular processes that comprise the essence of metabolism— the reactions to external environmental factors.
It is most regrettable to encounter among Soviet scientists, even among these holding leading positions in certain branches of biology, a complete lack of comprehension of the new progressive trend in science.
In a monograph on Schistocerca (1952) I stated that an understanding of the patterns of transition from isolated to gregarious forms of existence, and vice versa, requires further studies of the biochemical changes in the cytoplasm, and of the molecular structure of proteins. The latter also depends upon the intensity of ultraviolet radiation which varies according to the cycle of solar activity. The variations in solar activity during the cycle should also be studied within the complex of external environmental factors, which are still often examined with the aid of very primitive techniques, using ordinary thermometers and simple meteorological in struments, and which require improved methods in order to study the physiological effect on the locust of solar-radiation factors. This point of view encountered an ironical attitude at that time from some learned ento mologists. Even the press used to insert exclamations such as "Let the reader himself judge the relationship this bears on locusts." It is certainly simpler and easier to count or measure appendages of dried locusts in museum specimens than to break new ground in the complex field of the biophysical and biochemical patterns of the living organism, to trace down to their roots new facts in processes of the intracellular microscopic world, which also determine the morphological changes of organisms.
It is hoped that at this stage the reader will be able both to assess correctly and to condemn in clear terms those scientists who persist in their obsolete positions and have no understanding of the new and most promising trend in scientific research.
There is no doubt that times have changed and that our scientists will be equipped with the most progressive methods and apparatus for their labo ratories, which will help in understanding the complex processes of intra cellular biochemical and biophysical reactions determining the metabolism and the biological patterns in the lives of individual species, especially of those causing mass reproduction.
It is with special satisfaction that we mention the research carried out by the German scientist Muller /14/. He analyzed the contents of purine and pyrimidine bases in deoxyribonucleic acid extracted from migratory locusts, and obtained remarkable results. Muller noticed that maximum absorption of ultraviolet rays by deoxyribonucleic acid is precisely at that wavelength that has the maximum biological and mutagenic effects, namely at wavelength 260 mu.
Several other scientists outside the USSR, in Europe and America (Carlson, McAlister, Tahmisian, Schneider, Hollaender, Latarjet, Holden, and others), are engaged in studies of the effect of ultraviolet and radio active radiations on the state of the neuroblasts of certain species of orthop terous insects, on the phenomenon of embryonal diapause, and on many biochemical and biophysical processes in their bodies.
We maintain that this trend in the study of patterns, especially of mass reproduction in locusts, is most promising and desirable because of its great theoretical value and practical importance in the protection of crops.
In view of the achievements in the allied sciences, especially bio chemistry and biophysics, and the availability of suitable equipment for microanalyses, entomologists are expected to move forward and to pass from the "classical" methods of breeding insects in incubators to the use of labeled atoms and electron microscopy. This will permit a deeper analysis of the processes occurring in the cells of the insect, and uncover the molecular relationships and explain the effect on them of the entire complex of external environmental factors, including the variable solar radiation and the corpuscular invasion of the Earth's atmosphere.
In modern scientific terminology, "molecular biology" has justifiably become a common term.
In his speech at the Moscow international symposium in 1957 on the problem "Origin of Life on Earth", Academician E. N. Pavlovskii stated that physiological functions originated in the process of formation of living matter revealing its cardinal function: metabolism. This in turn was related to morphological differentiation of primary organisms and their subsequent evolution. In the process of scientific specialization morpho logy and comparative anatomy evolved naturally toward functional morphology and biochemistry of developing organisms /15/.
It is our opinion that precisely this approach to the still unknown processes and phenomena is the most likely to lead toward understanding the existing patterns, while elaboration of the theoretical principles in volved in the development of organisms will open the way toward useful implementation of the scientific achievements in socialist agricultural practice.