News Release (March 8, 1968)

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1 136 -3/8/68 Ref.r Furman c. Arthur FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SARASOTA--Fighting is not all the U. s. Army is equipped to do and an Army captain who visited the New campus this week testifies to that. Capt. Robert Cobuen is attached to the Chemical Corps and assigned to the Army Materials and Mechanics Research Center in Watertown, Mass. There, along with other scientists of different specialties, he works on projects assigned by the Army Materiel Command. Capt. Coburn, who as a graduate sltudent worked under the direction of Dr. Rodger Griffin at Harvard University, is now visiting his former mentor at New College and delivered to science students two talks about his research interest. The research center where he is stationed, he said, is one of a number in operation about the country working on specific assign-menta in a variety of scientific areas. At the Watertown center, there has been much work done on structural materials. There, he said, there was developed a process for makinp, an aluminum armor plate. Whea the process was discovered, I it was turned over to private enterprise for development aQd manu-facture. The same thing happened to a process for forming titanium. more

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NEW COLLEGE Page 2 Private enterprise, Dr. Coburn aaid, doea not always hAve the interest nor the funds to devote Rpecial study to that the Amy wished to have researched. That is why at a center like the one at Watertown, a of scientists of different disciplines are working. He said that currently there is reat interest i n cera ic.s for a large number of ilitary uses. His own work 1 more in fundamental than in applied research. He is studying c.yanogeneticglycocides, a long name describing toxic compouuda occurring in large numb rs of plant Great freedom of operation is given to Army scientists, he said, more than he imagined would b iven in comparable industrial situations. Capt. Coburn returned Saturday to Massachusetts. He said the encouraged such trips to canpuses to share results of current research. His talks at lew College were given under the auspices of Dr. Griffin, who is assoc.,it professor of che.istry. 30 -