HYDROGEN BOMBS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 109, 21 February 1950, Page 3

HYDROGEN BOMBS

POSSIBLE EFFECTS BROADCAST BY AMERICAN PHYSICIST (N.Z.P. A.—Copyright) NEW YORK, Feb. 19. How hydrogen bombs might be uSed to destroy all life in an area measuring 1500 miles by 3000 miles was described to-day by fCssor Harrison Brown, a University of Chicago physicist. In a broadcast speech he Suggested (hat a series of bomb explosions along a line running north and south through Prague might virtually wipe out Russia’s population. Radio activity would be carried eastward by prevailing winds. This would destroy all life from Leningrad to Odessa and from Prague to the Ural mountains. After passing the Urals'radio activity would begin losing intensity, and it would be harmless by the time it reached , the United States.

However, a similar string*of explosions in the Pacific could bring death to nearly every American., Professor 'Brown said that some humans might, survive if they were shielded or were wearing 'filtering masks, but all animals and vegetation would be destroyed.

ATOMIC RESEARCH IN U.S.

NEW PLANT OPENED AT OAKRIDGE NEW YORK, February 19. .Faster, safer, more plentiful and cheaper processing of radio-active isotopes is expected to result from the establishment of a special self-contain-ed plant at Oakridge, Tennessee, for the handling of atomic by-products which are available for medical and otligr research. The plant, which was opened yesterday, Avas described by officials as “the world’s strangest drug store and chemical shop.” It contains elaborate remote-control devices and protective shielding. Previously by-products were prepared for shipment in improvised quarters at the main Oakridge plant, where the atomic bomb was born.

At Oakridge 40,000 mice are beingused by atomic scientists in efforts to ascertain the effects of radiation on the heredity of man. Scientists said that they planned to increase the colony to 100,000 mice. They added that it would take at least 10 years and studies of many generations of mice before conclusions could be drawn. The .research was aimed primarily at studying the effects of measured doses of X-ray on the genes (material in cells which carpr hereditary traits) of mice.