The Scientist - Home

SANTA FE, N.M--Jumping from a 165-foot cliff wasn’t in their job descriptions. So there was some grumbling when Hewlett-Packard lab director Frank Carrubba asked 20 of his scientists to attend an “adventure-learning” program in the wilds of New Mexico. One year later, the Palo Alto, Calif., researchers talk fondly about their four days at LEAP (Leaders Experiential Adventure Program). The experience brought people from different areas together "in a bonding way,"Carrubba sa

Ask a scientist about the media and you will get an opinion. But what do they actually know about it? They see the products, newspapers, TV programs, radio broadcasts, and may even have had their own work featured at some time, more or less accurately. But their conception of how these things actually come into being usually is extremely hazy, and the media itself does little to dispel the veil over this creative process. The British Association for the Advancement of Science coordinates a pr

Science in the Soviet Union, which inherited the Academy of Sciences founded by Peter the Great, is a difficult subject of study. Many war memorials in the Soviet Union carry the proud words, "Nobody forgets; nobody is forgotten." That is, nobody forgets those-who died in defense of the ideals of communism and the territory of the U.S.S.R. But, in light of others who perished, it might be added "Nobody remembers; those who do remember do not say."A number of major, but inconvenient, figures ha

For cancer researcher and medical historian Baruch S. Blumberg, communication is central element in the scientific enterprise This month, many Americans will see him in that role when public television station across the country broadcast "Plagues." A host of the one-hour program, Blumberg traces the origins of several deadly epidemics: malaria, which may have contributed to as many as half of all human deaths to date the 1849 outbreak of cholera in London; the 1918 Spanish flu; and Legionnair

BOSTON--By significant margins, and in surprising numbers, members of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) have voted to oppose the administration’s SDI program and military funding of their discipline. About 7,000 members nearly twice the number that normally vote each year for the society’s officers, cast ballots on one or more of the five resolutions. The first resolution, passed by 57 percent of those who voted, expressed the society’s refusal to lend “a spuriou

LONDON--A plan to have British industry pick up the cost of "near-market" research may jeopardize the jobs of thousands of agriculture and food researchers at state-funded institutes. Officials at the British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food are reviewing the department’s $200 million annual budget to find which portions should be transferred to industry over the next two years. That approach parallels a recently announced policy that the Thatcher government would support R

Nuclear energy has always engendered both hope and fear in people. Depending on one’s viewpoint, the power of the atom is the key to either Utopia or Armageddon. In Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Harvard University Press, 1988) physicist-historian Spencer Weart examines the images that have influenced discussion of nuclear energy since the latter part of the 19th century. In this excerpt from the book, Weart offers his views on the next steps in the debate over nuclear power plants a

In 1939, when World War II broke out, I held the Royal Society's Sorby Research Fellowship and was working on problems of insect physiology at Sheffield University. As my name was on the Central Register of Reserved Occupations, I was debarred from military service so as to be available for scientific work of national importance. Unfortunately, the authorities had no suggestions for any such work. I felt I should temporarily abandon insect physiology and devote my talents to some problem more c

You and Your Friendly Science Journalist Have a Lot in Common. You have to take pity on journalists. Only politicians and lawyers are more universally despised. Scientists in particular have long avoided the press, for reasons that have ranged from an admirable reluctance to toot their own horns, to a less-admirable fondness for stereotyping. "Reporters always get things wrong,"scientists mutter."They take information out of context, they sensationalize our results, and they make us look like f

CARDIFF, WALES--Scientists at the First International Conference on the Release of Genetically Engineered Microorganisms here have called for international guidelines on dissemination of new organisms. But they stopped short of formal recommendations on international regulation of genetic engineering. Deciding against a final communique, they deputized a member of the UK government’s watchdog committee over recombinant DNA, John Beringer, to carry their concerns to the Organization for

Aesthetics and Motivation in Science. S. Chandrasekhar. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1987. 170 pp. $23.95. In this small, attractive volume, the well-known astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar presents seven lectures on the motivation of scientists, the meaning of beauty in science, and contrasting patterns of creativity in science and the arts. Presented on various occasions during a 40-year period, the lectures are printed without alteration. Thus, as Chandrasekhar notes,

Atom Spy. Robert Chadwell Williams. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 1987. 267 pp. $25. KLAUS FUCHS The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb. Norman Moss. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1987. 216 pp. $16.95. Any thorough account of the role of physicists in World War II requires evaluation of the activities of Klaus Fuchs, the notorious German refugee physicist who, through the 1940s, leaked top atomic secrets to the Soviet Union while actively contributing to American and British atomic