BITS AND PIECES

CORPORATIONS AND CHILD CARE , a 48-page report on how capital profits from day care, is available from the American Friends Service Committee, 48 Inman Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. The booklet describes how big business makes money from both the high-priced sale of low-quality service and the use of cheap female labor. There also is a chapter on alternatives which includes a list of resources on parent- and teacher-controlled community centers, and materials for use in nonracist, non-sexist pre-schools. Cost: 50 cents to individuals; $1.00 to libraries and institutions.

THE NEWSPAPER YOU READ TODAY MAY BE YOUR FOOD TOMORROW , according to a Denver University microbiologist. Dr. Brooks D. Church says that fungi can turn discarded paper into a protein-rich food supplement ... and the mold produced contains as much as 50 percent protein. Currently it's used in animal feed, and - if approved by federal health agencies--could supplement human food, Dr. Church says. Fungus has been grown successfully on the leftovers from paper factories, grain mills and breweries...and even on feed lot cattle wastes and manure. The Green Giant Company's Minnesota corn and pea cannery and an Iowa milling firm are now testing the idea in pilot plants.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF LAND , the United States' most basic resource, is gathering momentum from Washington officials. Congress, backed by the Nixon administration, is trying to establish measures that could affect millions of people... what they can do with their property, where to build or buy new homes, and even where you can spend your vacation.

There is still an estimated 10 acres for everyone in the country, but the postwar "baby boom" is causing the formation of 27,000 new households each week and, in the next two decades, power plants and transmission lines alone will take up over 5,000 square miles. Because of this growth pattern, Hawaii has zoned every foot of its territory, earmarking sections for urban, rural, agricultural or conservation uses... California requires special permits for coastal construction, while Maine, Vermont, Florida, Washington and Oregon are trying to pass laws to control a stampede of land speculators.