Paul Smaglik's article entitled "Folic Acid Deficiency's Role Expands Beyond Birth Defects" (The Scientist, Oct. 13, 1997, page 10) cites several recent epidemiology studies that link folate deficiency with increased plasma levels of homocysteine and heart disease without reviewing the older scientific literature. Such a review would have provided an answer or insight to the question posed in the article as to how a folate deficiency or homocysteinemia is related to heart disease or stroke. Mor

Your March 20, 1995, article on the Gairdner Foundation Awards [N. Sankaran, page 3], in reference to the award to Arthur Kornberg, states, "he came to Stanford in 1959, where he organized the biochemistry department and chaired it for 10 years." The record needs to be set straight. The biochemistry department at Stanford was founded in 1955-56, with Nobel laureate Edward Tatum as its first chairman. The new faculty of the department consisted of Professors Tatum, J. Murray Luck (founder and e