do we _need_ radiation?

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

> Life has a real knack for "making virtue out of necessity", or coming to depend
> on the conditions that prevail.  Better people than i have hypothesized that we
> all _need_ small amounts of ionizing radiation.  But we don't know...

Experiments on smaller organisms in subambient radiation suppress biological
functions (growth, life-span, weight, etc.)  
> 
> It would be expensive, but maybe not outrageously so, to raise mice with
> exposure to radiation restricted to about a percent of the norm.  

Is it necessary to be quite so low to establish?

> The cages would need to be in the sorts of caves that are used for nutrino
> telescopes, of course, and their grain would need to be grown indoors with CO2
> obtained by burning coal [which has essentially no C14, being hundreds of
> half-lives old].  Potassium would be a problem, but mice need little enough
> that isotope separation is not out of the question, and of course it can be
> recycled from urine and feces once you have an initial stock.  The plants must
> be grown hydroponically.

Raising bacteria in a K-39 media made at Oak Ridge led to substantial
suppression. > 

>
> This is an obvious experiment.  Does anyone know if it's been done?
> 
> 
> -dk
> 
Good question!  Don't limit answers to mice!

Regards, Jim