Medicine: Necrobiotic Rays

Three investigators, widely separated, last week reported on an invisible light ray which seems to be the intimate tool of death.

At the Smithsonian Institution Dr. Florence E. Meier fired ultraviolet light waves of various lengths at green, one-celled plants called algae. The algae succumbed to waves which were almost as short as x-rays.

At the University of California Professor W. W. Lepeschkin took living yeast cells into a pitch dark room and killed them. In dying they gave off a short, x-ray-like radiation which affected some silver bromide (ray-testing compound) in the room....

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