Misrr Urla J. Sahneidrr
66 hat 78th Streclt
P?ew York 21, Hea York

Daar ti I Schneider:

   Thank you for esnding me your report, whiuh obviously repmsents
a great deal. of thought and care on your part.

   I scan36 a certain amount of bewUi*rment on your part, 'but 1 aa
not surprised.  I think that rsuch of the confusion and apparent contra-
dic:tion in the literature, whiah is reflected in your assimilr:tion of
it, is Cmply a historical ,~ocess.  The i&omation you suzm&aed La
at the very frontier of dimover, dnd we find out new W.ngs every d,ay
which change some details of our thinking and h&p to anlzrge our tier-
Stbinding.  The transition from ignorance to knowledge is al.waya halting
ami tentative, one step at a tima here and there, and likewise it f&es
time for any adentist to educate himelf on ourrent progress In every
field.

   3ore ex$lcitfy, I da not think there is any longer t swious
doubt of the occurrenoe of sexualfty in 8. coli strain K-12, and possibly
in mm few other baateria.  T&ansduration is another nreshaniam, whioh has
a nmber of ditff arent forma0 and haa been discovered to occur in luite a
few organisms.  Jus t as cliff erent organism3 hpms evolved different
teahni~quss of locomotion , mLrnninrJ# flying, crawling, walking, these are.
dkfferent techniques of yens tic rscomblnatfon. And V they overlap !-n
dfs tribution, well birds can walk a& 1 trust you can swim.  mat we
have beon drsarfbing are t&e oacasiona md limitations of these teahnk@es
ani we can only report what we find.  Fortunately, it is not difficult tn
tell sxperiment&Ly when a baaterial. speaiear is using its variourrr
teahnfquerr z in praatias they are used wrier different airaum~tanaes that
this causes no trouble.  For example, rewabintrU.on between A pair of
lysogenia E. aoU s+zaina, both P-, ueually turns out to be tranaductive
(and we have more detttfled teeth to verify this conal~mion). UT' they
are non3.yao~enl.c , but om or bth Ls F+, they nxe probb3.y .z~ting.

Good luck k: you,

Yourlr sincerely,

Joshua kdsrberg
Professor of Medical r)sneuCs