Evening star., 1932-08-28
NEW LIFE MADE TO ORDER!
Quick Gtcig Grapefruit Panty F Cotton and Strange Nv Foers M Among
Curs Obtained Shooting XRas Into the Life Cells PAanta Speeding Up Of
Evolution That WW Be Discussed Congress


! quietly experimenting in a monestary garden
with peas, who discovered the law of inheritance
how physical traits descend from parents
through dominant and recessive characteristics
A brown-eyed father and bue-eyed mother
can be counted on to produce among their
progeny certain proportions of blue eyes and
brown eyes in each generation. But occasiOn-
ally an exception crops up. Suddenly q de-
scendant appears with coal-black eyes. How
account for this?
Biologists explained such changes as evolu-
ton. No one knew why or how evolution took
place. 1t was suggested that the conditions
surrounding life were responsible. But. asked
the experimenters, which conditionS?-and how
do they operate?
In the effort to answer this question, invest-
gators have subjected living matter to every
conceivable sort of treatment. But no matter
how hard the conditions imposed, those indi-
viduals that survived continued to reproduce
their kind unchanged, except for a possible
stunting
Way back in 1899, four years after Roentgen
discovered X-rays, it occurred to Lopriori, a
European biologist, to expose plants to X-rayS.
His experiment resulted in the death of all its
subjects. Later Investigators learned how to
gauge the intensity and duration of the ex-
posure SO as to avoid this destructive effect.
Striking results came in 1904. Gilman and
Batejer X-rayed the eggs of a salamander.
What Matched out could hardly be called sala-
manders-there were giants and dwarfs and
curious nondescript creatures. Puzzled, sioubt-
ing their results the researchers X-rayed hen
eggs as a control experiment. When these
were Matched they produced chicks as startling
as the salamanders-creatures that no hen
would own. Thus at last a means of forcing
evolution was hit upon!
But the early results were crude. The
changes were grotesque exaggerations rather
than Implications of natures ways. 1t was not
single mutations or changed characteristics that
Matched from the rayed eggs, but rather de-
formed creatures-giants and dwarfs and other
monstroSities. What the scientists wanted was
an otherwise normal creature with changed
characteristic-a pair of black eyes cropping up
in family that had known only blues and
browns before.
The first experimenter to obtain this result
was Prof. H. J. Muller of the University OF
Texas
Dr. Muller experimented with fruit flies
which have been the subject of research by
geneticists for years. Thc fruit fly normally has
red eyes. DR.. Muller found among descendants
of his X-rayed insects dozens of flies with white
eyes, some with purple eyes, yellow eyes, brown
eyes. There were bulgy eyes. dented eyes, fiat
eyes. So with almost every physical character
lSIlC wings OCCURRED In great range Oh
variations; legs, too, were long, short, crooked
straight; antennae in many curious designs;
and there were curly-haired bugs. coarse haired
bugs and bugs completely bald.
They were a motley throng," said DR.. Null
Ter. THE genes, the roots Of life, had, indeed
been struck"
Genes are a comparatively modern concept In
biology. Until the X-ray demonstrated their
existence they were purely theoretical name
given to the supposed units within the living
cell which are believed to carry or control the
characteristics of the living creature
Even the simplest life cell, that of the most
primitive protocol, contains hundreds Of genes
and they are linked in groups or chains called
chromosomes. The chromosomes are readily
visible under a high-powered microscope. But
the genes which are thought to approach a
molecule in size, never had been seen until re-
Gently. when DR.. John Belling of the Carnegie
Institution developed a technique of misco-
scopy which enabled him not only to see the
envelopes of individual genes in the cell of q
leopard lily but to photograph them and
count them.
DR.. Belling worked with pollen cells. Though
a single pollen cell of this lily measures less
than one four-hund-edth of an inch in diam
eter, DR.. Belling saw and counted within that
infinitestimal space at least 1900 Of the car
riers of individuality
Precisely what happens within a living cell
when its genes are struck by X-rays is not
known. 1t appears from the results that some
times chromosome chain Of genes is cut in
two, sometimes an end is nipped of, frequently
cut piece is transferred from one end of the
chain to its opposite, or from one chain to a
neighbor. Or single gene may be knocked
out of chain or several genes may be blasted
and the chain scrambled into a new arrange
ment.
A S physicists investigate the mechanics Of
the radiation effect, biologists are peering
deeper into the mystery of the genes and en-
deavoring to draw charts which map their DO
sitions and relationships. The aim is to iden-
thy and plot each gene or group of genes re-
sponsible for each Characteristic in the living