Abstract
ACCEPTING, on the basis of work with organisms in general, including mice, the conclusion that X-rays and other high-energy radiations produce gene mutations in any human germ cells that nre exposed to them, with a frequency exactly proportional to the dose of radiation used, we may ask: What are the conditions governing the manifestation of these mutations? When attention is confined to the recessive gene-mutations, which appear as the most pronounced and constant, yet insidious, genetic effects, it may be approximately calculated how long the latent period would be between the time of exposure of an individual who afterwards reproduces and the appearance of some descendant manifesting a recessive mutation that had been produced in one of the former's germ cells.
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MULLER, H. Role of Radiation Mutations in Mankind. Nature 147, 718–719 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147718a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147718a0