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Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including one on General Electric's annual stockholders' meeting in the April 30, 1949 issue, another on Joseph Stalin and Russia in the April 23, 1949 issue, and the article on Atomic Energy in the April 30, 1949 issue.

The structure-activity relationships of agonists of the locust excitatory neuromuscular synapse have been reinvestigated, paying particular attention to the purity of compounds, and to the characteristics and repeatability of the muscle response. The concentrations of compounds required to stimulate contractions of the retractor unguis muscle equal in force to the neurally evoked contractions provided a measure of the relative potencies. Seven amino acids were capable of stimulating twitch contractions, glutamic acid being the most active, the others being analogues or derivatives of glutamic or aspartic acid. Aspartic acid itself had no excitatory activity. Excitatory activity requires possession of two acidic groups, separated by two or three carbon atoms, and an amino group α to a carboxyl. An L-configuration appears essential. The ω-acidic group may be a carboxyl, sulphinyl or sulphonyl group. Substitution of any of the functional groups generally causes total loss of excitatory activity, but an exception is found in kainic acid in which the nitrogen atom forms part of a ring. The investigation of a wide variety of compounds revealed neuromuscular blocking activity among isoxazoles, hydroxylamines, indolealkyl-amines, β-carbolines, phenazines and phenothiazines. No specific antagonist of the locust glutamate receptor was found, but synaptic blocking agents of moderately high activity are reported.

We rarely think of the possible beneficial results of training in something “everyone knows how to do”—such as learning from television. This article is drawn from Mr. May's M.A. thesis, completed in 1963 at the University of Maryland under the direction of Prof. George F. Batka. Mr. May is presently working toward a PhD. in the University of Wisconsin, as a teaching assistant in the Division of Radio-Television-Film.

MASS MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS. Charles S. Steinberg (ed.), New York: Communication Arts Books (Hastings House, Publishers), 1966. 530 pp. including index. $11.50. (Paper $5.95.)THE ORIGINAL OLD RADIO GAME. By Ed Callahan, Bill Shilling, and Mal Whyte. San Francisco, California: Pisani Press, 1965. 48 pp. $1.00.UNDERSTANDING MEDIA: THE EXTENSIONS OF MAN. By Marshall McLuhan. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964. vii + 359 pp. $7.50. (Also in paper at $1.95.)THE GUTENBERG GALAXY. By Marshall McLuhan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962. vi + 294 pp. $5.95.THE.TECHNIQUE OF THE TELEVISION CAMERAMAN. By Peter Jones. With a preface by J. A. Youngman. New York: Communication Art Books, Hastings House, Publishers, 1965. pp. 243. $10.00.IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING BY TELEVISION. Edited by Barton L. Griffith and Donald W. MacLennan. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1964. xii+238 pp. $4.00.HOW GOOD ARE TELEVISION RATINGS? By Martin Mayer. (Report on work of Committee on Nationwide Television Audience Measurements.) February, 1966. 26 pp.ABCs OF RADIO AND TELEVISION. December, 1965. 20 pp.THE TELEVISION STATION MANAGER. By Charles Winick. (Reprint of article from Advanced Management Journal, January, 1966, pp. 53-60.)

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS OF BROADCASTING: THEIR HISTORY, OPERATION AND CONTROL. By Walter B. Emery. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1969. xxxi + 752 pp. $12.50.THE TV DIRECTOR/INTERPRETER. By Colby Lewis. New York: Communication Arts Books, Hastings House, Publishers, 1968. 255 pp. including index. $8.95. (Also in paper at $5.95.)VIOLENCE AND THE MASS MEDIA. Edited by Otto Larsen. New York, Harper and Row, 1968. 310 pp. (paper, $4.50).THE PEOPLE MACHINE. By Robert MacNeil. New York: Harper and Row. 1968. 333 pp., $7.50.