Too Hot to Handle

When atomic scientists think about the hazards of radioactivity, they get the jitters. "Hot" (radioactive) atoms have already caused plenty of trouble in laboratories. At one university, two entire buildings have been so radioactivated that they can no longer be used for atomic work; at another center, a researcher in one afternoon infected the laboratory so badly that the walls had to be taken down and replaced.

In spite of such mishaps, scientists have so far kept things pretty well under control. Recently they got together at the Atomic Energy Commission's Brookhaven (Long Island) Laboratory to do some long-range worrying. The Associated Press's Howard Blakeslee listened in and last week reported some of their worries.

The Big Question. How to dispose of the vast amounts of radioactive waste that will accumulate as more & more U.S. atomic ovens go into operation? Soon it may become too dangerous to discharge waste into the air (as the few existing laboratories do now). Radioactive atoms cannot be safely buried in the ground; they spread widely and might contaminate plants, food, etc. They cannot be thrown into the sea; they would poison the fish, be sucked up in ships' boilers, evaporate and fall in radioactive rains.

Dr. J. E. Rose of the University of Chicago's Argonne Laboratory reported that engineers have considered (and discarded) some elaborate disposal schemes. One was to seal the radioactive atoms in concrete cylinders and drop them into the ocean. No good, says Rose: in 100 years or so the cylinders might break open and discharge their still radioactive atoms. Another proposal: bury the atoms deep in abandoned caves. But they might be dissolved by underground water, flow out and spread the atoms as rain.

The Lesser Worries. The Brookhaven conferees heard some schemes for safe shipment (to researchers and doctors) of radioactive material. Examples: make shipping boxes too big to be carried in a pocket (too close to the body); put horns on boxes to prevent their being cradled against the stomach (a vulnerable spot).

The conferees also did some worrying about the hazards of atomic explosions (i.e., bombs). An atomic explosion that contaminated a city's water supply, warns Dr. E. G. Williams of the U.S. Public Health Service, would compel complete evacuation of the city for months, years or perhaps permanently. Scientists can only guess at how widely the effects of such a catastrophe might spread. Would the radioactive water be sucked up by roots and contaminate food plants ? Would the poison be passed on to successive plant generations by radioactive seeds?

At Pasadena, a California Institute of Technology geneticist declared last week that atomic-bomb radiation does indeed affect heredity. Dr. Ernest G. Anderson displayed some misshapen ears of corn--second-generation descendants of corn seed that had been exposed to radioactivity in the Bikini bomb tests. Said he: the Bikini corn, which produced a large percentage of abnormal offspring, may be a forecast of tragedy to come among the descendants of Hiroshima survivors.

"Affected genes and chromosomes in some Japanese people," he said, "may result in the birth of morons, cripples and deformed progeny in future generations. . . . It is quite possible that these [deformity-producing] recessive genes will gradually be spread throughout Japan."

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