Re: Re[2]- Elephants vs mic

[Elaine Marshall <elaine_marshall@qmgate.fnal.gov>]

                      RE>>Re[2]: Elephants vs mice                 6/20/97

In late 1995 or early 1996, J. I. Collar released to the press his conclusions on the biological effects of stellar collapse neutrinos.  The introductory paragraph began with "Several theories intend to explain the record of biological extinctions that sprinkle the history of the Earth."  The news media got a hold of this and articles were published in the New York Times and the Boston Globe in January 1996 and in Scientific American in April 1996.  Collar's paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal on February 1996 (Physical Review Letters, Volume 76, Number 6, page 999).

I bring this up as Dr. Collar essentially applies the linear no threshold model and deduces that as many as 4 to 12 malignant foci per kilogram of tissue would result from such a cosmic event.  He goes further and postulates that large mass species, of relatively low populations, might have sufficient members killed by these tumors to result in extinction.  A definite extrapolation of this theory.

For information, our comments on this which related to the relative biological effectiveness of high LET radiations (and his rebuttal) were published in the February 17, 1997 issue of this same journal (Volume 78, Number 7, pp 1394).  We also addressed this issue in a paper that has recently been accepted for publication in the Health Physics Journal.