The Genetic Effects of Radiation (Deseret Alphabet edition)

In addition to being one of the world’s greatest science fiction writers, Isaac Asimov (1920– 1992) was highly regarded as an indefatigable popularizer of science. Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) was a prominent geneticist. “The Genetic Effects of Radiation” is a booklet originally prepared in 1966 for publication by the Atomic Energy Commission, then a part of the US Government. It was part of the AEC’s “Understanding the Atom” series. It covers some of basics of radioactivity, genetics, and the effects of radiation on living tissue in general and more specifically on DNA, and its concomitant impact on inheritance and a species’ genetic load. This book is in the Deseret Alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for writing English developed in the mid-19th century at the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah).