MAY FERTILIZE GERM CELLS BY VIOLET RAYS

Professor G. H. Parker '87, in an interview with a CRIMSON reporter, confirmed the story that unfertilized eggs had been hatched by ultra-violet rays, declared that Dr. Jacques Loeb, professor in the University of Chicago 30 years ago, had succeeded in producing the fertilization of eggs in a super sale solution. Before he died he had full grown living frogs that had been produced in this manner. Naturally these frogs had only those characteristics that they had inherited from their mothers.

Dr. M. A. Minrichs and Dr. Ralph Lillie in the University of Chicago have carried on this study started by Dr. Loeb and their discovery of a few days ago is the result of a number of years work. Taking frogs instead of fishes they found that unfertilized eggs which would naturally die when placed under powerful ultra-violet rays for five or ten minutes turned into living fish larvae. The same experiment was tried on star fish and a number of lower animays with equal success.

When, however, they turned to higher animals, strange deformities were noticed. In commenting on this Professor Parker stated that it must be expected that in abnormal processes one often receives distorted results. When an embryo hick which was fertilized in this manner by the radiation of the ultra violet rays started to develop it was round that it grew to have only one eye and its heart was broken into a number of separate pieces, each one of which palsated independently.