Since no chemist can truly say that he has seen a molecule under the microscope, laymen may be mystified to hear scientific talk of "giant molecules." But molecules, infinitesimally tiny as they are by ordinary standards, vary greatly in size. Molecular weight of ethyl alcohol, for example, is 46 units; * of sodium chloride (salt), 58.5; of the hormone secretin, 5,000; of hemoglobin, about 68,000; of the thyroid substance thyroglobulin, about 700,000. Dr. Wendell Meredith Stanley and his associates at the Rockefeller Institute have crystallized the virus which causes mosaic disease in tobacco, found...
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