Miscellaneous Partial Documents (Major Publications, Partial Reports) (Cover Sheet Attached)

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SIGMIFICANT MAJOR PUBLICATIONS 1. Environment of t h e Cape Thompson Region, Alaska, J. J. Wilimovsky & J. N. Wolfe, editors. USAEC. 1966. 1250 pp. A description of the environment of that arctic area, embracing measurements of the geological, meteorological,soils, and biotic characteristics of the area. The work was supported by the Plowshare Program as part of Project Chariot. 2. A Tropical Rain Forest,A Study of Irradiation and Ecology atEl Verde, 1629 pp., reports on seven years ' studies to learn the systematics of. a rainforest and how radiation stress modifies it. 3. Bioenvironmental Studies of the Columbia River Es tura ry and Adjacent In Press. This volume covers aspects of AEC-funded research relating tothe Columbia River. studies,radio nuclide studies (chemical), radio nuclides in the biota, and general biological studies. Pacific Northwest Laboratory, the National Marine Fisheries Service, Oregon State University, and the University of Washington. Maj.or subjects covered include general oceanographic 4.Radioactivity in the Marine Environment. I n Press. This summary i s being published under the auspices of the National Academy o f Sciences, National Research Council. Chapters by world experts in such diverse fields as marine sedimentation and marine ecology are included in this book, which i s meant t o summarize current knowledge about radioactivity in the ocean. 5 . The First National Symposium on Radioecolopy was held at Colorado State University in 1961 and the Second Symposium on Radioecology was held at Ann Arbor, Michigan, i n 1967. including representatives from several foreign countries. The Proceedings o f each Symposium were published in large volumes containing a wide range of articles spanning the entire field of radioecology. These volumes are important data banks forsc - i ent is ts and informed laymen in this new and complex area of ecological awareness. The Second Symposium had 354 participants 6. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. The Weapons Effects Handbook Series, beginning with the Effects of Atomic Weapons, published in 1950, stands among the more widely used publications by the AEC. The handbooks are the products of collaboration between the DOD and AEC and rely on the con tri - but ions of laboratories of both agencies for the experimental and theoretical data which are compiled. The current edition was published in 1962 and provides a wide variety of effects information for yields up t o 20 megatons A nomographic Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer which

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In agreement with the Defense Atomic Support Agency, a commitment was made to revise the 1962 edition. will be completed i n 1972. advance i n AEC contributions to nuclear - related technical information. It is expected that the manuscript The new revised edition will be a significant The Beagle as an Experimental Dog, A. C. Andersen, e d i t o r , Iowa State AEC Symposium Series (1963 - 1 ORKL Biology Symposium Series (1948 - ) Proceedings of International Symposium on Basic Biolopy held in Latin ORAU Symposium (later ones published as AEC Symposium) Cold Spring Harbor Symposium (with AEC support) Biological Handbooks - Federation of American Societies for Experimental Utah Symposia (1961 and 1969) Parathyroid Hormone Conference (Talmage), 1968 C., D; Van Cleave, Late Somatic Effects of Ionizing Radiation, MII/AEC, H. Stokinger, Beryllium : Its Industrial Hygiene Aspects, Academic Press, 1966 - Monograph Series -on Industrial Hygiene. Ionizing Radiations and Immune-Processes, Charles A. Leone, editor. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1961. USAEC/Univ. of Kansas. Late Irradiation Effects Conference - Inventory of Capability,Paul S. Henshaw, editor. USAEC, 1963. Immunopathology - Third International Symposium, Pierre Grabar and Peter A. Miescher, editors. Held at Scripps Clinic and.Research

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Parathyroid Hormone and Thy roc alc it on in(Calc it on in), Roy V. Talmage and Leonard F. Belanger, editors. Proceedings of the Third Para thy roi d- - Conference, Montreal, Canada, October, 1967. Mawson, C. A.,Editor, Proceedings of the USAEC Meteorological Information Reiter, Elmar R., 1969, Atmospheric Transport Processes,Part 1: Transfers and Transformations, AEC Critical Review Series, TID-24868 Tracers, AEC Critical Review Series, TID-25314 1971, Proceedings of The Precipitation Scavenging Meeting-1970, Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Richland, Washington, (in

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plants and animals to other possibly radio sensitive components of the environment. The data from these studies proved useful and illuminating, but most of all they indicated the need t o observe how ionizing radiation affected the interdependence of organisms living in their natural environments were soon underway. A carefully considered number of such long-term ecological ex peri - The scientific returns from ecological researches emerge comparatively slowly because a great.dea1 of information must first be gathered zbout the normal (control) environments; and the pace of the investigations is set by passage of the seasons. B-6 Ir radi at i oo of Ecosystems The Brookhaven Ecology Forest program was initiated in 1961 as apart of the Brookhaven Radiation Ecology Project ; its purpose was to investigate the nature of the changes following exposure of an oak-pine forest in the temperate zone t o low levels of ionizing radiation. The project, designed t o run for many years, has been yielding classic information on physiological characteristics of organisms growing under their local natural .conditions ; the sensitivity of this type of forest to gamma irradiation ; the long-term genetic modifications in each component ofthe system; and a variety of associated phenomena-such as the direct and indirect ef € ects of irradiation on insect pop ul at ibn s in the litter. .Several other natural systems have been exposed to irradiation. These include test areas in the Nevada desert(v.i.) ; a short grass prairie in Colorado; a forest and old fields near the Savannah River Plant ; a tropical

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rainforest in Puerto Rico; and apine and hardwood stand in the Georgia piedmont. These it u dies indicate that recovery from the effects of ionizing radiation tend to follow the same successful patterns repeatedly observed in other areas recovering from fire, logging o r mining of topsoil ; Recovery of an environment has been especially dramatic at Bikini - Atoll in the Pacific where high yield nuclear devices were tested. Animal and plant communities r e - established themselves spontaneously within 10 to12years after their destruction. When planted groves of different varieties of coconut palms have become capable of providing a continuing supply of this staple food, the major island of the Atoll will be acceptable for human hab itati on. The Georgia Pine Woods study was specially significant as it was the first clear demonstration that different species of trees living in a natural community exhibited different degrees of radiation sensitivity.. An unshielded 10 megawatt experimental reactor suspended in the air provided a controlled radiation flux approximating the neutrons and gamma rays from a fission device. The pine trees were clearly more radio sensitive than the oak and hickory hardwood?. Radiation doses of the order of 2000 Roentgen equivalents killed the tissues on the surfaces of the pines facing the reactor ; doses some 4 times larger caused the hardwoods to extend their winter dormancy later into spring and t o shed their leaves earlier in autumn. It was also observed that the irradiated trees resisted other environmental stresses such a s drought less effectively than did the

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controls. The tree,therefore, obeys the bio logic principle that if one o r more ecological factors (e.g., water, temperature, or light)is. less than optimum for an organism the sensitivity of the organism t o other stresses may be disproportionately increased. Atthe Nevada Test Site a 30,000 curie cesium-137 source with a specially contoured shield was mounted on a tower so as to irradiate evenly an enclosed 20-acre field.This otherwise undisturbed desert ecosystem was exposed almost continuously for three years to levels of gamma radiation amounting t o about 50 t o 80 times background for the plants and 10 t o 20 times background for the animals. (The difference i s due tothe animals spending much of the day in their burrows.) results indicate that the life span of desert rodents living in the fr radiated area are shorter than in those inhabiting adjacent un irradiated control plots of the same size,quality,etc. The total population remained unchanged but there was a shift in the population structure : There were fewer older animals. The implication is that these low levels of radiation did not appreciably disturb the ecological relationships within what might be considered an already stressed environmental network. Cyto genetic studies have beeri conducted atthe Oak Ridge National Laboratory on a population of Chironomus larvae which were exposed toa radiation flux in White Oak Lake about 1000 times normal background. These midges were the progeny of a natural population of Chironomus that had.lived and reproduced i n the lake under these exposure conditions for

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20 years 'or about 150 generations. Compared to controls,onlya few extra chromosomal aberrations were found inthe exposed populations. Midges with such aberrations probably are eliminated from the population through natural selection. A somewhat analogous experiment has been underway at the University of Washington since 1943. Chinook salmon eggs and a levin s were intro - duced into a specially reserved breeding pool until - the fish were thoroughly adapted to returning to this their home pool to breed after their fouryear sojourn in the North Pacific. The 1960 brood year fish were exposed t o 0.5 Rper day for the 60 t o 80 days that they normally remain in their pool. No damage was observed at this dose and the exposed fish returned from the sea four years later in percentages comparable tothe unexposed gone down t o the sea; 1974 should be a most interesting year. The 1970 brood year has been exposed t o 40 R per day and has . It was known prior to the 1960s that the mean acutely lethal dose of ionizing radiation ranged from about 200 rad s for mammals to 6,000,000 rad s for microorganisms. During the 1960s research of the type sketched above provided estimates of the radiation sensitivity of many ofthe major I ecosystems of North America. Since man i s now an intruder in some degree i n almost every ecosystem i t is essential that he understand how his pre sep ce disturbs the system, keeping i n mind that radiation is only one of the stresses that he may introduce. Radiation appears to be a minor stress, t o judge from the above data..I

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The use of radioactive isotopes in everyday life is so extensive and commonplace that the benefits they bestow are often overlooked; they are now essential components ina wide variety of modern activities.In. the case of the biomedical sciences the physician is keenly aware of the multiple uses of radioisotopes in diagnosing and treating diseases and actively seeks to expand their uses. The biologist regards radioisotopes as very special tools that allow him to investigate problems that could not otherwise be approached. More recently the ecologist and environmental scientist by adding radioactive techniques tohis conventional procedures has been able to explore with unusual success a range of problems of immediate concern t o everyone. E-2 Beneficial Applications in Medicine L-Dopa. The discovery that daily doses of the amino acid, L-3,4dihydroxyphenylalanine o r L-Dopa., are of great value in relieving the symptoms of Parkinson ' s disease was a n outgrowth of studies on manganese toxicity in miners by investigators at Brookhaven National Laboratory. L-Dopa therapy represents the only known effective medical treatment of Parkinsonism and the side effects of the chemical are not serious.In addition to its clinical usefulness, L-Dopa has introduced new concepts in the management of neurological disorders affecting the structures at the base of the brain. Nondestructive, sequential studies of the metabolism of radio labeled L-Dopa and its analogs raise the possibility of uncovering the neurologic basis of this disease which affects approximately 500,000

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Hormone assay. An in vitro clinical diagnostic procedure for assay of circulating hormones has been developed i n which appropriate radioisotopes or antibody reagents labeled with radioisotopes are added t o small samples of blood or other tissues taken from patients. This chemical o r immunochemical type of radio as say is highly sensitive and specific.In many cases i t can be used as a rapid, inexpensive office procedure for estimating the blood level of a number of hormones. The technique i s of particular importance as i t does not expose the patient to radiation, an advantage that is especially desirable in the case of children and pregnant women i n whom irradiation is to be avoided. Californium-252. A program for evaluating the effectiveness of neutrons from naturally fissioning californium-252 for cancer therapy was begun about three years ago by providing californium-252 sources to two medical institutions on a loan basis. The initial studies focussed on the dosimetry and radio biology of this man-made radioisotope,first in normal and malignant cell cultures and then on the skin of swine. Presently, 17 specially selected patients with far advanced carcinoma have received radiation therapy by means ofthe X- and gamma-rays and neutrons from californium-252 impiants; by far most of the tissue dose results from the neutron flux. The californium-252 is sealed in platinumiridium tubes like those used to contain radium-226 for radium implant These initial studies on patients are being carried out under close control to determine the efficacy of californium-252 radiations in specific

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clinical conditions and to ascertain to what degree surrounding normal tissues are affected and so limit the tolerable doses. are encouraging, a s demonstrated in the figures 2A and 2B. after completing evaluation of this phase, further clinical trials will b e undertaken comparing californium-252 against currently used radiation modalities. These trials will be conducted under the supervision of investigators having the expertise and experience in all the fields relating to radiation therapy. Currently eight medical centers are participating ir at ive basal c noma of the right nasal - labial fold. The patient was deemed too.old for radical surgery or an extended course of external radiotherapy. Figure 2B - Same patient as i n 2A three months after receiving an estimated 4000 rem i n 67 hours from a n implant of californium-252. The lesion was healed with no evidence of recurrence.