Science: Can Life Survive The Bomb?

When Red China crashed the nuclear club, its A-bomb test blast echoed through all the world’s capitals. And it roused once again the specter of a dead and devastated world. Scientists and laymen alike have long feared that the aftermath of a nuclear attack would be a desolation of blasted, baked and radioactive wasteland. What life survived the initial holocaust, it was agreed, would surely succumb to the longer-lasting hazards of atomic radiation. So far, the best proving grounds for such theories are Bikini and Eniwetok, the two Pacific atolls that were clobbered by some 60 atomic explosions, from the low-yield nuclear blasts that hit Bikini back in 1946 to the mighty hydrogen bombs let loose on Bikini and Eniwetok between 1954 and 1958.

To find out what happened to the plant and animal life that once inhabited these coral islands, a team of University of Washington radiologists, sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission, have made an extensive, five-week survey. They report findings that seem to suggest that if ever men are foolish enough to pull the nuclear trigger-and fortunate enough to limit the area of conflict-the earth may not become a wasteland after all.

Magnolia & Morning-Glory. Wading ashore on Namu in the Bikini atoll, an island so hard hit by atomic fireballs that its entire top was blown off, the scientists found it covered with sedge, beach magnolia, and the small white-flowered tree messerschmidia, which was named for the 18th century German botanist, Daniel Messerschmid. So thick were the morning-glory vines on some of the islets that the scientists had to hack their way through with machetes. Birds are back in the atolls, replacing those that were killed or so blinded that they starved to death.

When the scientists swam under water to collect fish samples, they found hordes of parrot fish, surgeonfish and goatfish, and school after school of brightly striped convict fish; significantly, none of them appeared altered by radioactivity. A few species, however, did not come through so well. The coconut crab, once a delicacy of the atolls, is now inedible because it has retained such a high level of strontium 90. The reason is that when the crab molts, it eats its old shell for the mineral content and so reabsorbs its radioactivity.

Clams £ Tenacity. Now back in Seattle, Chief University of Washington Radiologist Lauren R. Donaldson and his team are trying to solve the problems raised by the high survival rate on the atolls. Part of the answer surely lies with the tropical atolls themselves, where soothing trade winds and warm ocean currents forever bring birds, fish and seeds from far, unbombed shores. But another part of the puzzle may be the manner in which animals absorb and then throw off radiation. Donaldson and company have brought back hundreds of fish and wildlife samples from the atolls, are now analyzing them for radiation clues. Their most promising specimens are giant clams that were dredged up alive four miles from the center of the blasts that seared the atolls. The great mollusks have pumped thousands of gallons of irradiated water through their systems, and as a result, Donaldson points out, “will have biologically monitored all of the events that transpired.”

But Donaldson is still worried that his tests may prove inconclusive, if only because many species of atoll animals and plants may have perished from radiation damage before he got there. He is also convinced that no man could have survived the tests without suffering radiation damage; it is the lowest organisms that survive best. Even so, there is obviously much to learn. “Life,” says Donaldson, “has a tenaciousness not often appreciated.”