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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Wednesday, April 3, 1968
Photo by Bruce Patterson
CHECKING READOUTS
T. K. Terry, assistant professor of comparative biochemistry and physiology, scrutinizes a tape taken from the tri-carb liquid scintillating spectrometer in the background. This instrument is used to measure radioactivity in biological samples.
Boarding clubs replaced by KU residence halls
Over half the KU student body lives in organized houses—residence halls, scholarship halls, fraternities, sororites.
But 80 years ago none of the KU students had the advantages of group living.
In the early 1880's boarding clubs were organized with the cooperation of landlady and students.
Prices, probably high enough in those days, now seem impossibly low. Meals varied in price and quality in the 80's, as low as $1.50 a week, as high as $2.
The forerunner of today's athletic training table, a boarding club for the football team, was organized in 1893. The athletes ate heartily for $4.50 a week. But other students still could board for $2.
Those KU students had simpler interests than Jayhawks of today. One historian describes them as "bucolic." Most of the students came, if not from the farm, from towns and cities to
which cows were not foreign. One might wonder today how many KU students ever have touched a cow.
The "Student Journal" contained this contribution from a boarding club:
"Ode to the Club Cow which departed her life, Oct. 7, A.D. 1894"
"Our cow is dead! her cheerful bawl
No more will echo through the hall.
No more is bran mash her delight;
She overate herself last night!
The cream she furnished for our
wheat
Was rich and pure and always sweet.
In fact there never was an hour When milk from this cow would turn sour.
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A KU assistant professor of comparative biochemistry and physiology recently wrote an article suggesting a possible mechanism through which some relatively primitive animal life (dynasaurs) might have become extinct centuries ago.
In his paper, "Biologic Effects of Supernovae," Terry strongly suggests that this radiation may have caused the extinction of some exposed animals without a simultaneous extinction of plant varieties.
Hence, this concept must be considered as a mechanism through which the contemporary fauna (dynosaurs, etc.) became extinct.
Furthermore, the possible effects of cosmic radiation from the exploding stars, particularly high-energy proton and gamma-ray emission, on biological systems were evaluated by Terry and Tucker.
K. D. Terry, who has been at KU since the fall of 1966, working with William Tucker of Rice Institute, Houston, wrote the article in which he expounds the theory that nearby explosions of supernovae or stars could have affected the progress of life on this planet.
Terry also proposed that indirect effects of the radiation as in the breaking of food chains, also could contribute to the extinction of certain species.
He notes that at least three researchers previously have suggested exploding supernovae could explain mass death of dynasaurs and other primitive forms of life as observed in the geological periods.
By Michael A. Gordon
(Editor's Note: The author of this story is a Kansas City, Mo. freshman who is studying comparative biochemistry and physiology. He has been involved in several biologically-related research projects.)
Games just in
However, the novelty of Terry's investigation lies in the quantitative approach to the problem. It is suggested mathematically that in the 600 million years since the Precambrian period at least one star or supernovae explosion occurred producing a dose of 2,500 roentgens—units used in measuring radiation.
Four doses could produce 1,000 roentgens or more, and ten could produce 500 roentgens or more.
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Radiation may have caused extinction of early organisms
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One question that has been raised concerns the simultaneous extinction of marine organisms. Terry has concluded that the presence of acute, high intensity radiation does not fully explain this phenomenon.
Terry has received approximately 75 reprint requests for the article and expects more than 100. The article appeared in the Jan. 26 issue of Science, a leading journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
As experimentation suggests that the LD-50 (lethal dosage, 50 per cent effective) for many laboratory animals is 200-700 roentgens, certainly cosmic radiation from supernovae could account for the massive extinction of animals.
The significance of this article not only is reflected by the number of reprint requests, but also by the number of information and communication media that have contacted Terry for interviews. Included are: The New York Times, the American Broadcasting Co., the Columbia Broadcasting System and Time magazine.
Consequently, Terry and his present co-author are examining the probability of a concurrent
resence of low-grade chronic radiation.
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