SOMETIME in 1940, two men disembarked at a railway station in the English countryside. They were internationally reputed scientists and had come in search of an abandoned shed to conduct an experiment. They had no training or experience in the experiment; nor did they have substantial funds. One of them was a physicist-turned-biologist, J.D. Bernal, and the other was a doctor-turned- anatomist-turned curator of a zoo, Solly Zuckerman. The experiment was an urgent one. The Second World War had started and aerial attacks by the German Luftwaffe had caused panic in London. Those were pre-radar days. The experiment was to determine the damage potential of bombs of different sizes and to see how the damage reduced with increasing distance from the point of impact. It was surprisingly simple. Apes and pigeons were kept in shelters and bombs were exploded at different distances - of course with the permission of the Police Department. Then the scientists would examine the damage to the shelter as also to the captives. It turned out that the damage was far less than the popular perception of what it would be. The two men now used themselves as "guinea pigs", that is, they sat inside the shelters while the bombs were exploded and thus gathered first-hand data about the impact on human beings. Their finding played an invaluable role in lifting the morale of British citizens and helped them design protective shelters and plan civil defence systems. http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1810/18100860.htm Zuckerman J.D. Bernal
