SCIENTISTS MAY LEARN MORE THAN ANY OTHERS

Chronicle (Levin), 29 June 1946, Page 5

SCIENTISTS MAY LEARN MORE THAN ANY OTHERS

Press Assn.

Bv Telearavh

-Copyright

NEW YORK, June 27: Received Friday, 7 p.m. . . Everything is ready for Monday's atomic bomb test af Bakini fhough Jowering clouds and intennittent rain seem to hold out littlo proinise of suitable cliniatic eonditions. The scientists, however, are cojifident tliat line weather is in the offing. | In Bakini lagoon, Admiral Blandy's luige staft's have put everything in readiness. The great guinea pig lleet is riding at aiiehor waiting for annihiiation by a blast of lieat, i'orce, pressure and miclear disintegration or combination of all of thein. The scientists admit they are dealing still largely in the unknown. lt is for tliis reason tliat 150 odd aeroplancs have been dispersed throughout the MarshaUs and on Carriers. There is a grouj) oi Super-Fortresses litted with almost every known radiologieal measuring instrument, whieh Avill stalk the 60,000 feet high deathtilled cloud to warn any inhabited spot within its path tuiti! it lias dispersed. Sixty tliousand feet is the estimated upper limit of the cloud which will arise in a mushroom sliape, it is believed, following the explosion and it is no rumour to say that the cloud will l)c filled with death in a variety of J'ornis, some of them still unknown to medical science. The cloud which, it is thought, will reach its upper limit in a few minutes, will be 16 miles in diameter. Aei'o])lanes will "ride here" on the cloud while daylight lasts. Aflei'wards destroyers. likewise equipped with detector instruments. will take up the job throughout the night. The Iwologists. zoologists and medical men are chiefly interested in an unlucky farmyard which is an important part of the experiment. It consists of 200 pigs, 200 goats, 4000 rats and 120 mice with high to low predilection to cancer. Some goats have their hair clipped ap])roximately to the length of human hair and some have not. Some are being proteeted with antiflash cream and clothing and some are not. The rats and mice have all had an accurate blood count made and the survivoi's, if any, will have another when it is all over. As part of the same physiological experiment, vai'ious vaccines, viruses, toxins, antisera, bacteriopliages, hormones and vitamins will also be exposed. Admittedly the experiment is designed primarilv as a military and naval experiment and it is perhaps a sinister presage for the fulure that it is now I'airly evident that it is not the admirals and generals who will learn the most I'rom Bikini but the scientists.