16— Lancaster Farming, Saturday, Jan. 17, 1976
Electric fields used for chick growth
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.
- A tendency of strong
electric fields to accelerate
the growth of male chicks for
a few weeks after birth was
reported by a Penn State
professor today to the first
International Symposium on
Envlromcntal Concerns in
Rlghts-of-Way Management,
held at Mississippi State
University.
Dr. H. B. Graves,
associate professor of
poultry science, reported his
findings on chick growth
during a presentation in
which he was Joined by Dr.
Guy McKee, also of Penn
State and Westlnghouse
electrical engineer John
Bankoske.
The three were members
of a session which included
H. A. Kornberg, of the
Electric Power Research
Institute, Palo Alto, Calif.,
and Louise B. Young, of
Winnetka, 111., author of
“Power over people.”
“Our findings are the
result of less than a year’s
work.” says Graves, “and
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must be regarded as simply
the opening steps in what is
projected as an intensive
investigation into other
effects, if any, of exposure to
electric fields and of the
neuroendocrine of other
mechanisms by which those
effects may occur.”
The Penn State resear
chers are using fields from
five to ten times stronger
than those found near high
voltage lines currently in
operation i. the U.S.
Aside from the accelerated
growth and a tendency of
exposed chicks to be less
active than controls, Graves
has found no other evidence
of either benign or
destructive effects on the
animals.
Dr. McKee reported
similarly negative findings
in preliminary experiments
on mice.
Dr. McKee told the
symposium of slight
amounts of tip damage he
observed in certain plants
(alfalfa, bluegrass and com)
exposed to strong fields.
Strong
“Tip damage," he
cautioned, “is not un
common in nature, in plants
that cannot muster sufficient
moisture to nourish their
extremities."
Electrically "irradiated”
plants, McKee said, do
exhibit a corona effect; their
tips light up like bulbs on a
Christmas tree when
photographed in total
darkness.
McKee speculates that
excessive heat generated by
the coronal discharge kills
certain cells near the tip of
the plant.
“We are now preparing to
test this hypothesis,” he
said, "by looking for the
presence or absence, after
exposure to high electric
fields, of ATP, the
’powerhouse’ of the cell.”
Graves found that chicks
exposed to 40 and 80 KV (per
meter) for four days (24
hours a day) exhibited a ten
per cent increase in gross
weight; the increase was
seen in males only, not in
females.
“Wc are speculating,” he
said, "that the force field
either operates by
stimulating the male
neuroendocrine system and
that the enhanced growth
response is a result of that
stimulation or that reduced
activity of the exposed
chicks shunts energy into
growth rather than into body
maintenance.”
“But in those animals the
effect was permanent. With
the present animals, ex
posure to a strong electric
field appeared to accelerate
growth for about five weeks
only. After that, the control
animals began to catch up
with the experimental
animals. We suspect that a
hormonal mechanism is at
work, but at this point we
cannot demonstrate that
exposure to force fields is
either healthy or unhealthy
for small animals.”
Graves intends to look at
brain wave activity, hat
ching, feeding and
reproductive behavior as the
experiments progress.
Graves and McKee are
working under a grant from
the Electric Power Research
Institute.
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