You may be surprised to learn that you already know quite a lot about the Agricultural Research Service, or at least about its bearing on your life:

• Your morning orange juice probably came from a frozen concentrated product developed through an ARS process.

• On your lunch table, the seedless grapes-green, red, or purple-came from ARS breeding.

• Safe processing methods from ARS are used to make hot dogs, sausages, lunch cuts, and other meat products.

• Preparing your evening meal may have included any of thousands of ARS innovations, e.g. thickening agents for sauces and gravies; longer-lasting, clear soybean oil; the fat substitute Oatrim; protein-enriched pasta and high-protein rice flour; and ways to safely keep flavor, color, and nutrients of fresh fruits and vegetables while they are being frozen.
  

Safe, plentiful food is not the whole ARS story, there are also household conveniences that start with ARS:

• Are you wearing a wrinkle-resistant cotton shirt? That's ARS technology. So are shrink-proof wool, tanning agents to waterproof leather, even a way to make flame-retardant garments.

• Our scientists developed electronic fly traps for cattle farms. Spinoff technology includes backyard moth zappers and fly traps like those that accompanied U.N. troops in the Persian Gulf War.

• ARS also developed Super Slurper. That's the super-absorbent corn starch molecule in disposable diapers and fuel filters. ARS scientists also have found ways to put cornstarch into plastics, making garbage bags and other plastic goods biodegradable.
  

Over 50 different fields of science in ARS leads to technology:

• Biological technology, through genetics and breeding, led to the small holiday turkey, vitamin A-rich carrots, and thornless blackberries.
• Through food sciences, came shelf-stable dried foods using a 3-step "Philadelphia Cook" process first tried on potatoes.
  
  
• Chemical technology includes ARS-invented durable finishes for leather, environment-friendly soaps and detergents, and dozens of traps and lures for controlling insect pests.
  
  
• Through micro-pathology and agronomy came the safe and efficient "Beltsville Method" of composting municipal sewage into a peat-like growing mix for turf and ornamental plots.
  

ARS contributions to better living span many decades and continue today. They aren't limited to food and textiles. There are so many ARS-generated industrial advances, they can't all be listed within this space. They include adhesives, compounds to make plastics, resins for shoe soles, book bindings, and drip-resistant paints.

It can be debated, but perhaps the most important product to be generated through public funds in the 20th century was the wonder drug penicillin. During World War II, ARS scientists learned to make huge quantities of stable, potent penicillin by growing mold number 1951 B25 in a drum filled with water from corn processing. The resulting inexpensive penicillin shots-curing millions of people of infections-launched the modern pharmaceutical industry.

For a list of available patents for licensing, contact:

Office of Technology Transfer
USDA-Agricultural Research Service
Room 358-A, Jamie L. Whitten Building
14th and Independence Ave. SW
Washington, D.C. 20250

Telephone (202) 720-3973; FAX (202) 720-7549

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