SESSION IV
217
DONALDSON:
I cringed just a little bit, Dr. Warren, when you
said small in numbers, because I've made the grandiose statement
that this is probably the biggest radiation experiment, numerically
speaking, that's been carried out with vertebrate animals. We normally use in excess of 100,000 exposed and 100,000 controls, making
200,000 animals in each experiment, Then we have to carry another
population along, so we always have reserve stocks.
WARREN:
But the salmon gives a small percentage of return, as
you indicated. ~
DONALDSON:
Yes.
Even if we get only a 1 to 3 percent return,
we have somewhere between 2,000 and 6,900 salmon coming back to
the University pond, which is just slightly larger than this room,
When you have that great a number of adult salmon—the average weight
last fall was 18.6 pounds—coming to a small place like this in a twoweek interval, you have a tremendous mass of experimental material.
So your statistical problems are astronomical. This return would
produce at least 5 million offspring each year. To evaluate 5 million
offspring, follow them step by step all through their incubation period, determine the number of anomalies, the rates of growth, individual variations between some 1,000 to [,200 lots, you need more
than a computer; you need a group of trained monkey technicians,
FREMONT-SMITH:
help with this?
How large a staff do they provide for you to
DONALDSON: That was the question a group of Russian geneticists
asked me last week,
FREMONT-SMITH:
I'm asking it now.
PR aeeEa aeaun enor
yasCaSee
DONALDSON: Ask John.
' FREMONT-SMITH: Let's get it on the record. How large a staff?
They've been supporting it for 24 years, but how large a staff do you
have?
WOLFE: It depends upon the season of the year. When those fish
are coming back, he's got 25 or 30 students and assistants out there
catching them out of the pond and going through all these ablutions
-that Lauren has described. During the off-season [ don't know how
many people there are.