At the Mainsprings

For three weeks, French Biologists Jacques Benoit and Pierre Leroy have been brooding over a set of 26 ducklings with the impatience of a mother duck. For the ducklings contained the answer to a big question: Had the Benoit-Leroy team succeeded in producing a new breed of duck by chemical injection?

The story began 13 months ago when Benoit and Leroy took twelve purebred Pekin ducklings and injected them with desoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extracted from the genitals of Khaki-Campbell ducks. The amazing result was that, when the ducklings approached full growth, they had the Khaki-Campbells' greenish-black bills and a set of snowy-white feathers quite unlike the Pekin's normally coarse, creamy-colored plumage (TIME, June 10). The biologists named the new ducks Blanche-neige.

Was the change permanent? The second generation might tell, and for that, Benoit and Leroy had to wait until new ducklings hatched from the eggs laid by their strange parents, and developed enough to display characteristic markings. Last week Benoit and Leroy reported the result of their vigil. Of the 26 ducklings, eight had the cream-colored feathers and bright orange bills of ordinary Pekin ducks. But the other 18 were typical Blanche-neige. Apparently, the chemical injection had basically altered the parents' genetic characteristics.

Benoit and Leroy made a reserved report to the French Academy of Sciences: "The percentage of change observed in 26 ducklings is sufficiently high to consider the differences recorded as significant." Other scientists were not so calm. Said Robert Courrier, director of the Laboratory of Endocrinology of the College de France: "The work of Jacques Benoit and his collaborators is probably going to have extraordinary sequels." Famed Biologist Jean Rostand declared himself "stupefied and overwhelmed." Said he: "We are in the presence of a disturbing discovery; Professor Benoit has succeeded in acting on the very mainsprings of life . . . transforming one race into another. It is a very great thing, which will open entirely new paths in a host of domains such as genetics and medicine."

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