Atomic Research Used To Solve Dominion’s Agricultural Problems

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27040, 26 March 1949, Page 8

Atomic Research Used To Solve Dominion’s Agricultural Problems

How atomic research was being used in New Zealand to help solve agricultural, medical, and industrial problems was described to-day by the Minister in Charge of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Mr McCombs. He said radio-active isotopes, most of them flown from the United States, were being used to an increasing extent as tracer elements, particularly in research into the problems of deficiencies in plant and animal life.

Mr McCombs said radio-active cobalt was proving very helpful to the Department of Agriculture in experiments into the cause and cure of bush sickness amongst sheep. It had long been known that cobalt deficiency was the cause of bush sickness but it was not yet known why. Radio-iodine had been used in the investigations of goitre at the Christchurch Hospital with promising results. “We have employed radio-active elements in several experiments in the industrial field. This field, however, is less important because much of the information required will be available from research already being conducted in other countries,” Mr McCombs said. He explained how the isotopes were brought to New Zealand. Most came from America. Britain was at present unable to satisfy her own demand. Many of the radio-active isotopes had only a limited effective life and this made it necessary to use air transport as much as possible. . . . The radio-active cobalt brought to New Zealand in one of the recently acquired navy frigates had been protected by a concrete shield weighing three-quarters of a ton. On the other hand the recent air consignment ol radio-active material was in a package that weighed only a few pounds. The utmost care was necessary in all stages in handling radio-active materials, and overseas safety standards were strictly adhered to in New Zealand. One of New. Zealand’s early difficulties in the use of radio-active isotopes had been the securing of equipment from overseas. That difficulty had been overcome very successfully by the Dominion Physical Laboratory where instruments for the measurement of an emission known as Geiger, counters, and scaling circuits were being made. Instruments now being manufactured also by commercial firms in New Zealand were equal in quality and price to overseas products. Latex in the year work would commence on a mass spectograph for determining the proportions of stable isotopes either naturally occurring or through artificial additions.