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rats, fish, corals, plankton; and some inve'rteUkates. Food s spl es were .?bo c o ~ Fcte din ' .: at Aiken, South Carolina.. fl;rveps were also made of the Nevada Test Site;.'the Brqokhaven ..: . fornia; and the areas around Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Schenectady, New York; Groton, ConData obtained from these :flights should lead to better understanding of the lang-term-@: fects of radiation on the environment and be helpful in appraising changes in environmental ._ levels of radiation resulting' from atomic' energy activities o r radiation accidents.' .. *.Whole body counters, developed in AEC installations for experimental purhoaes, hold ,; promise of becoming valuable adjuncts in dealing with people accidentally exposed to neutron cl at ions either have or are planning to have whole-body counters for operational or experimental .' irradiation, or who have inhaled or ingested dangerous radioisotopes. Most major AEC instalThese counters primarily measure gamma-emitting radioisotopes, but +ill also pi& up In an Incident involving inhalation or ingestion of unknown amounts of dangerous radioJ ' isotopes, effective medical treatment may depend on an accurate estimate of the amount of radioactivity and kind of radioisotope retained in the lung, skeleton, or other'critical organ.
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BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE Excretion tests currently in .use are not very precise and to be useful must be carried out . repeatedly; in some instances the time required to'perform the tests may exceed the period during which decontamination procedures should be undertaken. received by the men involved in the criticality incident in the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge.+ Results obtained suggest tha.t the whole'hdy counter under certain conditions may well prove useful in eslimating dosage. Where there is contamination of body surfaces, however, the when the body surfaces,havebeen thoroughly decontaminated. A whole body counter .was recently used in an attempt to estimate dosage of rad&~; counters will give high readings and the true dosage cannot be obtained until sometime later . - tween related hdividuals (first cousins) and the.caIculation of the normal.1wd.di det eq n tal. detrimental genes are carried on the average. A preliminary report on cousin &r&eS in . .:.:. ' Japan also indicates that .anincreased probability of early death coiricides' with.this mild form . Japanese under the Atomic Bomb Casualty Comkssion, and a.new contract was signed for a , - study by a genetics group at the University of Pavia in Italy of ;the .effects of consanguinity i n that country. The latter study will also include a direct attempt to measure the mut&.ion. ..' . rate available opportunities. :Alteration of the sex ratio (ratio of the numbers .of males and females born) is one accessible measure. An analysis of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki data indicates a real possibility that detectable sex-linked lethals were induced and that the rate of muGtion &r roentgen in 'man is probably similar to the mutation rate found in experimental determinations ..... i n mice. Study of a small group of offspring of American women-receivingo varh. radiation . The most significant recent finding in the field of experiment@ genetics is an b pkk stic : *"Accidental Radiation Excursion at Y-12 Plant, June i 6 , 1958," Y-1234. Copies dave been furnished q to the Joint Committee. .'
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Although it is still too early t o We refined judgments, .it now seems credible to.assume that ' I. the mutayonal process may n evidence suggests only that the prohabil . In an effort to extend knowledge of mammalian genetics, a iong-t .been ht ihi ted at Iowa State College. 'Swine.are,well-kno& with regard to such traits as growth, early viability, and productivity, and this backround.of know1 boar6 are to be studied through . Get, ofgenetic damage that +n dte years before preliminary data can goal here IS to select from the radiation-induced genetic changes .those variants that have ' - .. potential agronomic .value because of increased yield, modified maturation time, or altered .' disease resistance. Studies undertaken 10 years ago c k i n a t e d recently in the release by the, North Carolina Agricultural ,Experiment Station of a 'strain of peanuts resistant todisease *d possessing other Characteristics which make them superior to other commercial strains. . This new variety, the first of its kind to be released' in the United States, resulted from sub- . I ' jecting peanuts to a rah tion dose of.18,SOOroentgens, studying 'the resultant 11,000,mutaEvidence is beginning to accumulate that fast neutrons a r e significantly more hazardous when the exposure is at a lower rate protracted over the lifetime than when the same total exposure is at a higher rate of short duration early in life. In other words,the relative blological effectiveness (RBE) of neutrons to X and gamma'rays tends to increase as the duration o_5-lexposureincreases and the rate of exposure decreases. This observed change in RBE bas k r y d implications in the appraisal of reactor hazards. It has also been tentatively concluded C n This problem as well as others in the field of neu giled investigation in the near future at Argonne N reactor i s being built for th xicity will be subject to more' Laboratory. A small research
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. thermal columns, .ode.for high dose:rates and one for low dose rates. The attached e q s u r e '.topics s u d a s techniques. of atmospheric.,dpling, intensified Sampling and +ysis as--. . sociated dth Opemtion H&TACK, and periodic reviews of worldwide atmospheric transport and witdthe caimdians at ottawa. Responsibility f o r both.adminid.dive and te,chnical supervision &all AEC contracts for radiochemical andlysis.of environmental~samples'%.s assigned to the Health alnd Safety Labo- . In addition the :comprehensive &tion of e & i n g data on f@.lohthz+ta& issued hi October, * a number of'research papers on worldwide fallout by AEC &d contr&tor scientists ' The U. S. Weather Bureau expanded its activities relating to correlation and evzlruation . Atmospheric sampling capabilities of the AEC, Air Force Cambridge k s & c h Center., Air Weather Service, Armed.Forces'Specw Weapons Project, and Naydl Re4earch UhiatOX'Y. have'been organized into a screen extending from the equator to 'Wlar latitudes of bbth hemispheres and fr6m grounh level to as high as 90,000 feet at 'several latitudes. W i h g and immediately following the HARDTACK'test.series, samples were analyzed not only for fission . products, but,a.lso for tungsten 185, .which is present in debris from thistest series in quanti- ' . vide new infoTmation on the movement and deposjtion of debris from equator@.tests.- They . . already have shown that 'there was a rapid spread of material across the equator to the' ; tions Office. Copies have been furnished to the Joint Committee.
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tion of great interest whether, a - simples of rain an vania, to five stations in Department of Scientific station at Gracefield, Ne a s well as strontium 90 Mills and a n air liquefaction apparatus. new contractors began'research and d particulate sampling. One ,contractor, * precipitator which, if cause resistance to i feasibility of adapti it is Planned that the present reduced to two domestic skitions of the decision by the Air Force the major operatio monitoring will be in developing more efficient an the preceding pasgraph, and o cially important Un!ted Stgtes and imported foods. The AEC has noted the development of these surveillance programs with interest and has cooperated in providingdnformation and speed fheir development. c-39uring the interim period until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can obtain for
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Foreigd food samples will a.lso.be.provided'to Lamont by the U.,S.I nter de kt me mutationgffect. The 'transm&tion effect is the effect on genetic mutation rate8.d the ".-I , disintegration of carbon .14atoms originally a part of the organic, molecules of deoxyriboi,:.....; In essence,. the report states'that the-hazardfrom drbon 14 arises not ody from.the nucleic acid in tfie.germ.ceh. :mtin:these atoms'disintegrate,. they are no longer carbon 14 atoms &d therkfore the orginic.moledes are some e e r disturbed;-- may lead General Levels of.Worlctwide Fallout in 1958 The rainfall &ollections in New York City indicated a rise of about.10 millicuries of :.'' strontium 90 per square mile for.the year. . for New York. . City, with fulldata. . not yet available. . The results'of analysis'& 12 sets of soil samples collected from irrigated &tures akd other types of land in California, Nevada, and Utah during 1957 after Operation PLUMBBOB. indicated strontium 90 deposition levels ofsfrom5 to 45 millicuries per square 'mile, .values :.. that are not very different f r o m yalues recorded all,over the world,' away'from any test'site. Analyses were not yet completed on additional soil samples from types of land not repre- ' During the part of '1958for'which data are available, strontium'90 levels l o r liquid dhm were recorded in 1957. The milk' in Manban, North Dakota, which had been up,to ?,bout 30 .: , 'strontium units in 1957; fari'at about.:15strontium'units in early 1958 and then rose pickup is more 'important for grasses than is root pickup i n times of increased rate of i n New.York City ranged from 3 to 5 strontium units, which represented lower valueS.than . . tropospheric fallout from weap,ns testing. t .. Studies with rats at the University of Rochester showed that feeding stron&x? 96 for'. .. . lo-day periods at different dose levels produced observable effects depending on the body been furnished to the Joini Committee: *
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BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE of calcium and strontium,: as well as possible means of 'removing strontium from the.slieleton where it deposits. and one each i n Chicago, Om&, and Los Angeles. 'Strontium 85 has 'the further. a a a n b g e Of - ' ' ..-' . I bred beagles are given a single injection of either stronti% 90 or radium.at an early a g e ' s d i .burden of strontium 90. A retained body burden of about 1 microcurie of strontlum 90 produced no visible damaging effects nor life shortening over a period of 20 months, while one . of 2 microcuries llkewise gave no visible effects in 1 6 months, although tissue effects were noted. When the burden was 15 microcuries of strontium 90, the a 20 percent incidence of bone sarcoma was found. e span was decreased, and siderable data already exist on the effects of a mown body burden of radium in man.' The best known group of documented radium cases is the so-called radium dial-painters. @me of the ' dogs are given radi-pm. injections at doses which cover the range of internal radiation found ih . the hGan radium cases. Other dogs are given strontium 90 in doses which duplicate the.. ;, ; radium burdehs. It is believed that any observed parallelism between radium.and strontium in dogs can be profitably ejdrapoiated back to man.' . Research i n Soils and Plants The uptake by barley plants of strontium 90 applied at various depths of a California Soil (CoJKmbia, a very fine sandy loam) in lysimeters, was measured under both irrigated,and non-. irr@ted moisture treatments. Results indicate that f o r some plants, SOUS,and moisture coy_djtions,deep plowing of surface soil contaminated with strontium 90 to a depth of 2 feet or m y e l should reduce appreciably the introduction of this isotope into food chains. q n another lysimeter experiment with the same soil and crop, determination W ~ Smade of th-take of strontium 90 from artificially contaminated saline ground water 'maintained at a
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depth of 18 or 42 @&es.'.kthough there y a s upward movement of salt from the.flte such as 'barley with strontium 90 from contaminated groundwters is slight. A possible' err-. . planation is that the-strontium,ions become tightly aqsorbed on'.soil colloid surfaces at depths heavily contamiha&d with fallout from nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors',dght' h&e to b . by flail chopping of the stubble, was less beneficial. In'a second e&,riment, the'removal of. two p a i r s of wheels, Pms highly effective when the ground surface was relatively level. ,Plow- . the hypothesis &t the availability of cesium 137 in food chains originating in aquat!c'environments is .greatly different from its availability in terrestrial food chains.. The results of uptake of cesium 137 in the experimeptal aquatic food chairis were reported i n terms of.' ; 'concentration factors, that is, the ratio'of the concentration of cesium 137 in the organism to that in the water. ,The organisms analyzed included algae, submerged, floating, and emergent seed plants, snails, tadpoles, bullfrogs, -carp, s k i s h , and dragidly nymphs. .AIl'organisms accumulated concentrations of cesium 137 much higher than the concentration in the witer. The vertebrate predators showed the highest cesium 137 concentrations of al1,the orga$sms analyzed. Of the plants, the algae and the submerged seed plants showed the highest concen- . , tration factors., Aquatic plants accumulated at least 500 times as much'cesium as plants grown i n soil. Animals feeding on these plants have an enriched source of cesium 137 and will become' more contaminated than those obtaining their food through terrestrial food Chains. It is reasonable to conclude that' under'certain circukstances hazardous quantities of.cesium OPERATION ILARDTACK RADLATION MEASUREMENTS Pretest and posttest radiation surveys were made in the Pacific area in connection W i f h Phase I of Operation HARDTACK Data from these surveys a r e summarized in the AEC'S Twenty-fifth Semiannual Report to the Congress. Preliminary data on levels of radiation in the vicinity of the Nevada Test Site resulting from the Nevada phase of HAFIDTACK are Summarked in the same report. TACK in the area around Los Angeles, CaGornia, during the latter part of October and the . A special report on radioactive contamination from the Nevada phase of OperatiOn HARD- .
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BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 2. Reduction of streaming of radiation through openings &to basements and openings in concrete, brick, or block houses increases the effectiveness of the home as al shelter. For basements of brick and wood frame houses radiation is reduced by about 3. Kitchen and bathroom fixtures cast shadows which give additional radiation can increase the shielding potential of a home.. 4. Dose rates are appreciably decreased behind chimneys and inside fireplaces. ment and covered with 7% inches of concrete block feduces the radiation by a factor, ~. 6. The contribution of fallout on roofs of 2-story houses to the dose - h eon the improved shelter consisting of a heavy table placed in the corner of a basefirst floor is about one-tenth that from fallout on the ground outside, The data obtained from t+is.experiment are of immediate value to Federal agencies, . !?uilders, architects, engineers, and other technical pers.onne1 concerned with the construction of fallout protection in the home or with modifications and improvisations to improve shelter against fallout in existing homes., Radiological Survey Vehicld. Data were collected in an experiment a t the Nevada Test Site in May 1958 on which to base specifications for a vehicle equipped with radiation sources and instruments for evaluating the shelter characteristics of homes. A test vehicle is being developed by an AEC contractor, and trial runs are to be made, Using the typical residences at the Nevada …
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