Articles by Tom Abate

Date: November 23, 1992 Even as the superconducting supercollider survives another funding battle and lurches toward completion, some physicists are already wondering what comes next. The power of SSC collisions will fall far short of re-creating the state of matter at the instant the universe was born--an eventual goal of particle physicists. In order to give high- energy colleagues a new generation of tools to continue probing the mysteries of matter, a few plasma physicists are working on

With its traditional bent toward physical sciences, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has never funded biological studies adequately, and biological investigators have not taken space science seriously, space agency officials say. So, to boost biology into a high-profile orbit within the space program while delivering payoffs to National Institutes of Health-funded investigators on the ground, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin and NIH director Bernadine Healy recently signed an a

When the field of earthquake prediction took off in the mid- 1970s, seismologists had high hopes of finding geologic warning signs that would allow them to issue timely evacuation notices. But after years of inconclusive research, only a determined few of these investigators are still engaged in the effort to predict earthquakes, as federal support shifts to general studies designed to minimize quake aftereffects. "It isn't as easy as we thought it was going to be 15 years ago," says Jim Sav

The High Performance Computing Act, which became law last December, provides a boost in federal funds to improve and integrate the confusing collection of computer networks used by scientists to transmit data and electronic mail. The ultimate goal is to create a high-speed national computer network, analogous to the interstate highway system, with a capacity to transmit data at one gigabit (1 billion bits) per second, a speed 700 times greater than today's system. Such a system would provide e

The fledgling field of computer drug design, viewed skeptically by some scientists, gained dramatic validation when scientists from Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc. reported at a March 18 cancer symposium in Amsterdam that they have created a new compound. Agouron claims the compound, dubbed AG-331, demonstrates "significant anti-tumor activity" in animal tests. "This is a completely novel chemical entity that was not found in nature," says Mike Varney, a computational chemist at San Diego-based

In 1839, French physicist Edmond Becquerel first noticed that under certain circumstances, sunlight shining on an electrode could create a weak electrical charge. Other scientists dabbled with this photovoltaic process, but it was not until 1954 that researchers at what was then Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, N.J., created a solar cell using crystalline silicon, the same substance used in computer chips. Solar research received a boost from the space program, which saw the conversion of sunlight

Among the Ayta people of Mount Pinatubo it was a portent. A steam cloud that smelled like rotten eggs was rising from the peak.

While imports devastate other domestic industries, most notably the automobile and computer sectors, United States manufacturers of laboratory instruments posted a $2.3 billion trade surplus in 1991, according to U.S. Department of Commerce figures. Though foreign companies are making progress in the industry, the nation's equipment manufacturers can be assured that "made in the U.S.A." will remain a common label in labs throughout the scientific world. U.S. instrument makers have continued t

Sidebar: Gauging the Dangers of Radon Blame the radon fuss on Stanley Watras. In 1984, the young engineer was leaving work at the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant in Pottstown, Pa., when he set off the radiation alarm. Safety officials were perplexed. They could find no leak in the new facility. No other workers were contaminated. Yet when Watras walked past the radiation checkpoint on his way home, the siren began to sound. Safety officials solved the mystery by taking radiation readings at the

A gaseous byproduct of decaying uranium and radium, radon itself decays when it enters the atmosphere, forming a series of "daughter" particles. Two of them, polonium 218 and polonium 214, are alpha emitters, meaning that, when inhaled in high concentrations, they emit alpha particles, known to initiate cancers in the bronchial epithelia. Radon concentrations are traditionally expressed in picocuries (pCi) per liter, whereby 1 pCi represents the amount of material needed to produce 2.2 radioa

KEY PUBLICATIONS IN THE RADON DEBATE Author: TOM ABATE * Comparative Dosimetry of Radon in Mines and Homes (Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1991). A National Research Council committee offers the most recent look at epidemiological considerations of radon exposure. * Radon and Its Decay Products in Indoor Air (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1988). Edited by Department of Energy scientists William Nazaroff and Tony James, this 12-chapter edition is a primer in radon issue