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The Surfaces of Black Holes

By Saul Teukolsky | January 12, 1987

Black Holes: The Membrane Paradigm. Kip S. Thome, Richard H. Price and Douglas A. Macdonald, eds. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1986. 367 pp., illus. $40 HB, $14.95 PB. Black holes have entered our everyday discourse, used as metaphors for entities like the U.S. federal budget that swallow up all the country's resources. Astrophysically, black holes are formed when a sufficiently large amount of matter occupies a sufficiently small space. Gravity becomes so strong that the matter collap

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Time to 'Interfere' in Science Ed

By Donald Christiansen | January 12, 1987

Nearly all recent surveys of science and mathematics curricula in our secondary schools paint a picture of gloom and doom. A cross section of high school curricula and faculty taken across the United States reveals a lack of consistency in both the number and quality of courses. The research-oriented colleges and universities that draw upon today's high school graduates to populate their freshman classes are, however, generally blasé about the situation. A great deal of the colleges' effort

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U.K. Toughens Animal Regulations

By Philip O'donoghue | January 12, 1987

LONDON—A more restrictive law aimed at British biologists who use laboratory animals goes into effect this month. The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986 applies to anything done in the name of science that might cause "pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm" to animals. Routine tests, antiserum production and a host of small interferences occurring during behavioral or field studies are covered for the first time. The law replaces the grimly-named Cruelty to Animals Act, which

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'Gell-Mann Opened My Eyes'

By John Polkinghorne | December 15, 1986

Author: JOHN POLKINGHORNE Date: December 15, 1986 I am a subscriber to the “great man” theory of the history of science—the view that it is the insights of the men of genius that actually propel the subject. No doubt there is also a role for those of us who belong to the army of honest toilers, providing the background of expectation and exploitation, but the big ideas come from the big men. The first big man of theoretical physics that I knew was Paul Dirac, whose intellec

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...More Than an Evolutionary Theorist

By John Beatty | December 15, 1986

SEWALL WRIGHT AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY William B. Provine. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986. 561 pp., illus. $30. Sewall Wright has long despaired at being associated with an overly narrow view of the evolutionary process, one that attributes extreme importance to chance factors and neglects the role of natural se lection. His archrival, R.A. Fisher, contributed in no small way to this caricature. Even among those who get Wright's views on evolution straight there are those who minimi

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A Fly-By-Light Discovery

By Gegory Byrne | December 15, 1986

HUMOR Author: GREGORY BYRNE Date: December 15, 1986 What do you get when you cross a firefly and a tobacco plant? Tobacco that glows in the dark? Yes, word has come from the University of California, San Diego, of a remarkable new discovery that pushes scientific re search into the 21st century and beyond. It's not in the area of particle physics, laser technology or magnetic resonance imaging, but it's bound to be the biggest noise since the Big Bang. They've made tobacco plants that glow i

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A Personal Tribute To Tinsley

By Virginia Trimble | December 15, 1986

MY DAUGHTER BEATRICE A Personal Memoir of Dr. Beatrice Tinsley, Astronomer. Edward Hill. American Physical Society, New York, 1986. 138 pp., ilIus.$9.95. Beatrice Muriel Hill Tinsley was a wise, warm, and wonderful person. If you knew her in person or through her work, this book from the pen of her father will make you miss her all over again. If you never knew her, you will wish you had. In an astrophysics career that spanned less than 14 years, from her Ph.D. dissertation in 1967 to her dea

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Americans Confident Of Leaders In Science

By Amy Mcdonald | December 15, 1986

WASHINGTON—There is no single survey of American attitudes to-ward science that compares with the British and French polls. How-ever, the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation regularly reviews existing surveys in its biennial Science Indicators, an assessment of the overall state of American science and technology. The 1985 edition reports: Forty-seven percent of 943 respondents to a 1985 survey said they had a “great deal of confidence” in scientific le

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Argentine Vaccine Test Not a Secret

By Hilary Koprowski | December 15, 1986

To describe the recent test of a vaccinia recombinant rabies vaccine in Argentine cattle as an attempt to avoid or sidestep governmental regulations of the United States and Argentina totally mistakes the motivation for conducting the test and what actually occurred. The test was conducted in Argentina not to evade U.S. regulations but because rabies is a problem of such magnitude among Argentine cattle. The Argentine test was not conducted in secret, as stated in your article [see p. 11]. Befor

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Argonne, Chicago Form Technology Transfer Unit

December 15, 1986

CHICAGO—A joint venture between the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory marks another step forward in the burgeoning campaign to hasten the transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace. The new corporation will be responsible for developing business applications for discoveries made not only at Argonne, which is operated by the university for the Department of Energy, but also within the various university laboratories. The new joint venture makes use of

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