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To be effective as a control measure, the culling of a pest must exceed its capacity to regenerate. In North Australia, where feral donkeys are a serious pest of rangelands, a culling policy is being applied. Population studies have shown that 23 percent of the donkeys need to be removed each year to control density. Also, this figure must be exceeded if the population is to be reduced. D. Choquenot, "Rate of increase for populations of feral donkeys in northern Australia," Journal of Mammalog

Department of Chemistry University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pa. Hindered organoaluminum Lewis acids are able to distinguish between structurally similar ethers based on small differences in the size of the ether substituents. Complexation chromatography allows the efficient separation of a mixture of two very closely related ethers based on their differing affinities for a supported aluminum complex. K. Maruoka, S. Nagahara, H. Yamamoto, "Molecular recognition of ethers with modified organoa

Institute of Materials Science University of Connecticut Storrs In chemical vapor deposition (CVD), one of the goals is to deposit inorganic materials or metals at low substrate temperatures. To deposit metals, an organometallic precursor is often used. It has recently been shown that thermolysis of (trialkylphosphine) cyclopentadienylcopper(I) into a heated substrate will result in deposition of high-purity copper metal. The surface products of the decomposition reaction are free alkyl phosph

Department of Computer Science University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pa. Mobile robots in the workplace must select collision-free paths in real time, in environments that are constantly changing. A new algorithm is proposed that is based on representing obstacles in a quadtree, from data, for example, from a ceiling camera. Experimental results show faster calculations of collision-free paths than conventional algorithms. H. Noborio, N. Tomohide, S. Arimoto, "A quadtree-based path-planning alg

Department of Microbiology & Immunology University of Illinois Chicago Perhaps most of us (who live into our late 80s) will show symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. There is evidence of a familial propensity, so it is important to understand the genetic control and, through that, eventually the disease's biochemical basis. Lod ("log of the odds") scores range from significant to not significant (or back!). The results from 48 family lineages gathered by this group of 35 listed authors (plus an ad

(The Scientist, Vol:4, #21, pg. 24, October 29, 1990) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) -------- Hubble Trouble Aside, Fellowships Offered Now in its second year, the Hubble Fellowship Program encourages young scientists to do independent research in observational or theoretical astronomy related to the Hubble Space Telescope mission. The program is offered through the Space Telescope Science Center and supported by NASA. Up to 15 scientists will be appointed based on the quality of the propos

The Bower Award for Achievement in Science, the United States' richest prize for science, was presented to Paul C. Lauterbur on September 18 by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Lauterbur, a professor of medical information science, chemistry, biophysics, and bioengineering at the Center for Advanced Study of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was recognized for his leadership in developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the human body. The international award, establis

Nominations are now being accepted for the Chevron Conservation Awards, the oldest privately sponsored program of its kind in the United States. The $1,000 awards will recognize 10 professionals, 10 citizen volunteers, and five nonprofit organizations working to enhance U.S. air, water, land, and wildlife resources. The awards, to be presented in May, include a bronze plaque and a trip to Washington, D.C., for the presentation. The awards are important because "they attempt to recognize people

NEW CAUCUS IS NOT QUITE ONE FOR ALL Author: Jeffrey Mervis WASHINGTON--The latest battlefield in the ongoing war over priorities within the biomedical research community is the congressional Biomedical Research Caucus. The caucus, which has signed up 18 members of Congress as of the first of October, made its debut earlier this month at an afternoon symposium and reception on Capitol Hill that featured Harold Varmus, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco

WASHINGTON--A new report from the Institute of Medicine on how to fund health sciences research doesn't take the easy way out by asking the United States government for more money. But what it does recommend--that the government redistribute existing funds by shifting some money from research grants into training the next generation of scientists and improving research facilities--seems likely to aggravate rather than end the heated debate about how to allocate scarce federal resources. The me

Lending Nature A hand Car Wash Helps NCAR NASA Creates Astrophysics Network UC Regents Press Ahead on DOE Ties The Boston-based family of mutual funds, Fidelity Investments, has teamed up with the Smithsonian Institution to offer its investors the chance to make charitable contributions to support conservation efforts in Latin American rain forests. The project is based on the "debt-for-nature" swaps pioneered by biologist Thomas Lovejoy, assistant secretary for external affairs at the

TUCSON, Ariz.--Seven years ago, Charles Sterling came to the University of Arizona determined to find a new line of research. At the time Sterling, who was an expert in malaria from Wayne State University in Detroit, had grown tired of what he called the "nasty" world of big-time malaria research funding, a world rife with political infighting and fierce competition among scientists. So, at Arizona, he turned his attention to an obscure, little-studied relative of the malaria parasite, a protoz