In "Scientists Should Spend More Time Communicating With The Public" (The Scientist, Jan. 8, 1990, page 15), John Wilkes offers some good reasons why scientists should spend more time communicating with the public, but does not mention one major reason why they do not: There is little financial reward for doing so. This is not a forceful reason for abandoning regular small tasks in communication, but it severly discourages any major project. In my own case, a successful book aimed at explainin

Advertisers long ago learned that they could increase the sales of many products simply by adding the word "natural" to the packaging. But what is natural? To many people, the natural world is a chemical-free world. In his new book Chemicals & Society: A Guide to the New Chemical Age (Cambridge University Press, 1986), Hugh D. Crone of the Materials Research Laboratories in Melbourne, Australia, bemoans the "plethora of chemical fact and fancy with which the public is bombarded," including the t