Istgenetica —- Pavia

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ISTITUTO DI GENETICA
UNIVERSITA DI PAVIA
VIA SANT’ EPIFANIO, 14

PAVIA

Pavia, November 13, 1961

Prof. Joshua Lederberg
Stanford University
Medical Center

Department of Genetics
Palo Alto, California

 

Dear Joshua,

we are struggling with F yeast and are
making some small progress in separating the active com-
pound from toxic and inactive compound. Sofar it goes
very slowly but it takes good luck to find the right pro-
cedure.

I hope you have met Giovanni and had a
good talk with him.

I have sent under separate cover a re-
cord on the transmissions from Russian satellites which
was taken by two amateurs in Turin. Perhaps similar things
are available also in the States but, if not, you might
be interested by it. There is some lenghty talk in Italian
but the essence is as follows: on side one there are re-
cordings of Russian satellites and of the first American
satellite, including a Morse transmission which was clai-
med to be an 8.0.S. to all the world. The last recording
on the first side is perhaps the most impressive. The
professor of Surgery of Turin believes one can recognize
heart-beats and a deep and irregular breathing, lasting
sometime for several seconds. It is of course unknown if
it is of human origin.On side two is recorded a Rus-
sian voice, believed to be Gagarin's. Only one side of
the conversation is heard; it is possible that this is
the conversation which was translated in the newspapers
but the tone does not seem to correspond to the official
kind of speeches that were reported. Anyhow I know no
Russian here who could translate it.

We are now programming a research on
progeny of consanguineous people. We hope to study some
two thousand couples and the same number of controls, but
it will take some time. I have been considering for a
while taking IQ's and we may do it unless it turns out to
be too impractical and expensive. If you have any sugge-
stion, let me know.

All the best to you and Esther

UG

L.L. Cavalli-Sforza