Science: Spectrum

¶ The Soviet Union's famed Geneticist Trofim D. Lysenko, currently out of favor with his bosses, has tried hard—perhaps too hard—for a comeback. At a conference on farm problems, he backed a "new Russian agricultural discovery": plowless farming. Despite Booster Lysenko's proprietary enthusiasm, the technique (loosening soil with a disk harrow instead of plow-turning it over) is old hat to Western experts, has been tried experimentally in various parts of the U.S. for more than a decade.

¶ To avert surprise invasions by crop pests, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has developed fluorescent "lamp traps." Luring the "advance-guard" moths of crop-destroying grubs (e.g., tobacco budworms, cotton bollworms) with near-ultraviolet "black light," the traps soon collect a representative catch, give farmers as much as three weeks' time to prepare counter-measures against each type of invader.

¶ Long regarded as an intruder at regular air bases, the military helicopter is coming into its own at Fort Eustis, Va., where the Army is constructing the world's largest helicopter airport. Built with an eye toward experimentation in loading and maintenance techniques, the $970,000 heliport looks like a superhighway cloverleaf intersection, boasts two 600-ft. asphalt runways (for heavily laden 'copters) and a giant, circular taxiway, surrounded by eight dust-free warmup "pads." In this specialized setting the Army hopes to devise methods for mass operation of cargo and troop-carrying 'copters with something close to aircraft-carrier speed and precision.

¶ An Air Force test plane broke the world's record for high-altitude flight, soaring higher than the 83,235-ft. mark reached by a Navy Douglas Skyrocket last year (TIME, Sept. 14). So reported Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott at an Air Force Association convention in Omaha last week. For security reasons, he refused to identify the new record-breaking plane, the pilot or the exact altitude reached. Best guesstimates: altitude, 90,000 ft. (17 miles) above sea level, probably reached by Bell's XiA rocket aircraft. An added feather in the Air Force's cap: a B-47 jet bomber, refueled in flight, has set a new jet endurance record, staying aloft for 35 hours, traveling 17,000 miles nonstop.