The Mind Creative
use even trying to colonize the others.
And then, in 2034, thirty years ago, a brilliant biochemist named
Waymoth had discovered daptine. A miracle drug that worked not
on the animal or person to whom it was given, but on the progeny
he conceived during a limited period of time after inoculation.
It gave his progeny almost limitless adaptability to changing
conditions, provided the changes were made gradually.
Dr. Waymoth had inoculated and then mated a pair of guinea pigs;
they had borne a litter of five and by placing each member of the
litter under different and gradually changing conditions, he had
obtained amazing results. When they attained maturity one of
those guinea pigs was living comfortably at a temperature of forty
below zero Fahrenheit, another was quite happy at a hundred and
fifty above. A third was thriving on a diet that would have been
deadly poison for an ordinary animal and a fourth was contented
under a constant X-ray bombardment that would have killed one
of its parents within minutes.
Subsequent experiments with many litters showed that animals
who had been adapted to similar conditions bred true and their
progeny was conditioned from birth to live under those conditions.
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