Science: By-Products of the Bomb

The atomic bomb may save more lives than it ended. At the University of Chicago, where man’s first nuclear chain reaction simmered underneath a grandstand, the Institute of Radiobiology and Biophysics last week began work. Professor Raymond E. Zirkle and assistants began applying the new atomic techniques to the study of living organisms and their ills.

During the frantic race to build the atomic bomb, many incidental discoveries were made and put on ice. Among the most important: the radioactive by-products of the uranium-graphite pile. Almost any substance, stuck in the pile’s atomic furnace, comes out brimming with radioactivity.

Where radiobiology formerly had only one strongly active element—radium—to work with, it now has dozens. All will be far cheaper and more useful than radium.

What radium and X rays now do for cancer, the synthetic radioactive substances will presumably do better. The chances are that no more radium will be refined, though the uranium mined with it has a new, spectacular market.

Another important by-product of the bomb is the “tagging” of vitamins, hormones and food compounds. Normal atoms in their molecules can be replaced, in part, by radioactive ones. As these move through a living organism, they can be followed by instruments sensitive to their radiation.

Industrially, too, the atomic bomb may save more money than it cost ($2,000,-000,000). A. L. Baker of the Kellex Corp. of Oak Ridge (code name: Dogpatch), Tenn. last week issued an impressive list of non-atomic advances made while the bomb was in production. Among them:

¶ Improved defenses against industrial poisons.

¶ For the petroleum industry, better heatexchangers, new methods of separating gasoline fractions, better mass-spectrograph analysis.

¶ High-vacuum techniques, which will benefit many industries.

¶ More efficient gas pumps, some of which shoot out a stream of gas at a speed above that of sound (about 1,100 ft. per second). The collateral discoveries of the Manhattan Project, said Baker, totted up to around 5,000 new products, procedures and devices. The improvements in pumps alone, over the next 20 years, might be worth the cost of the bomb.