Happenings

The U.K. Advisory Council for Applied Research and Development has added five new appointees to its ranks. The 18-member ACARD reports to the government on the advancement of applied research and technology and the role of the United Kingdom in international scientific collaboration. In addition, the ACARD and the Advisory Board for Research Councils coordinate research supported through the Department of Education and Science. The new members are: Terry Harrison, chairman of Northern Engineering Industries; Graham Hills, principal and vice chancellor of Strathclyde University; David McMurtry, chairman of Renishaw plc; Alan W. Rudge, technical director, BT; and David Smith, former chairman of ESSO Chemicals. Gerald Wheeler of Montana State University has been elected vice president of the American Association of Physics Teachers. He will become president-elect of the 10,000-member association in 1988, and president in 1989. Wheeler replaces Robert Resnick of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who has moved to the position of president-elect. The 1987 president of the AAPT is Donald F. Holcomb of Cornell University. Marvin Goldberger, president of the California Institute of Technology since 1978, will leave his post in September to become director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Goldberger succeeds Harry Woolf, director of the institute for the past 10 years. Woolf will spend the coming year at Cambridge University as a fellow of Churchill College and plans to return to the institute as a professor in 1989. Linda Mischel and llaria Rebay, both female science majors at Columbia College, graduated as the top two in their class last month—the first fully coeducational class to graduate from Columbia. Mischel, the valedictorian, majored in computer science and graduated with a 4.2 grade-point average on a 4-point scale. Rebay, the salutatorian, majored in mathematics. Columbia first opened its doors to women in 1983 and was the last of the Ivy League schools to do so. William R. Prindie has been named associate director of research, development and engineering at Corning Glass Works' Sullivan Park laboratory in Coming, N.Y. Formerly director of materials research, Prindle is president of the International Commission on Glass and was president of the American Ceramic Society from 1980 to 1981. Lee W. Rivers was appointed to the Federal Laboratory Consortium as the representative for the Washington, D.C., area. He will be responsible for strengthening ties and enhancing technology transfer between federal laboratories that are FLC members and Washington-based organizations such as industrial trade associations, professional societies, and associations of elected state and local government officials. Rivers, a director of the Industrial Research Institute, recently retired from Allied-Signal as director of corporate planning. Awards The General Motors Cancer Research Foundation will recognize four outstanding scientists for advancing the treatment, prevention and understanding of cancer. At an awards ceremony June 10, each will receive a prize of $100,000, and $30,000 to cover expenses for a scientific conference. Honored will be: Basil I. Hirschowitz of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, recipient of the Charles F. Kettering Prize for clinical advances against cancer—he invented and developed the flexible fiberoptic endoscope used for cancer diagnosis; Robert A. Weinberg, of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Center for Cancer Research at MIT, who will be awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Prize for contributions to the understanding of cancer—Weinberg was the first to discover and describe the role of oncogenes in human cancers; Jesse W. Summers, scientific director of the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia, and R. Palmer Beasley, of the University of California at San Francisco and the University of Washington's medical research unit in Taiwan, will both receive the Charles S. Mott Prize for contributing to the prevention and understanding of cancer. Summers' work clarified the genetic structure of the Hepatitis B virus and proved it carcinogenic in laboratory animals; Beasley's epidemiological studies linked the virus to liver cancer. Richard Evans Schultes and Gilbert F. White will share this year's $150,000 Tyler Prize for environmental achievement. Schultes, Jeffrey Professor of Biology Emeritus and retired director of the Botanical Museum at Harvard University, is one of the founders of ethnobotany. White, Gustavson Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography and former director of the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, is recognized for his studies of flood management, nuclear war and other hazards, both natural and man made. The Tyler Prize was established in 1973 by the founder of the Farmers Insurance Group, John Tyler (now deceased) and his wife Alice Tyler. The award is administered by the University of Southern California. Ahmed R. Stowers received the American Academy of Neurology's Roland P. Mackay Award for Historical Aspects of Neurology at the academy's annual meeting. Stowers is a third-year medical student at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. He was honored for his essay on the history of Parkinson's Disease. The annual Mackay Award, which includes a prize of $150, was designed to stimulate student interest in neurology. David Packard received the Vannevar Bush Award of the National Science Foundation at the annual dinner of the National Science Board May 20. Packard, a pioneer in the advancement of U.S. high technology industry, founded the Hewlett-Packard Co. in 1939, along with his Stanford classmate William Hewlett. Packard served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1971 and in 1982 was named a charter member of the White House Science Council, serving on that committee through 1986. The Vannevar Bush award honors outstanding contributions in science, engineering and technology that are significant to the national welfare. The McKnight Endowment Foundation has chosen five scientists for the 1987 Scholar Awards in Neuroscience. Established in 1976 to encourage neuroscience research, especially pertaining to memory, the annual awards provide each recipient with $35,000 a year for three years in support of his or her research program. This year's winners: Aaron Fox, University of Chicago, for his study of hippocampal calcium channels; F. Rob Jackson, Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, for his research on the molecular basis of endogenous timing mechanisms; Dennis O'Leary, Washington University School of Medicine, for studies on neocortical development; Tim Tully, Brandeis University, for molecular cloning of the drosophila short-term mutant amnesiac and search for a long-term memory mutant; and Patricia Walicke, University of California at San Diego, for her work on hippocampal neurons and fibroblast growth factor. Robert H. Dicke and George A. Olah received the 1987 Michelson -Morley award of the Case Institute of Technology. The award was presented at the opening of a six month celebration honoring the centennial of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Dicke, the Albert Einstein Professor of Science emeritus at Princeton University, was recognized for his gravitational experiments providing support to Einstein's general theory of relativity. Olah, Distinguished Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Southern California and co-scientific director of its Loken Hydrocarbon Research Institute, was honored for chemical research leading to synthetic fuel development. Both received a prize of $5,000. The Michelson-Morley award, presented annually to one outstanding scientist since 1963, was awarded this year to both a chemist and a physicist in recognition of the collaboration between physicist Albert A. Michelson and chemist Edward W. Morley. Their 1887 experiments showed that the speed of light is unaffected by the movement of Earth through space. The Association of American Geographers presented its highest Honors Awards to five geographers at the AAG annual meeting William Denevan, professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for outstanding scholarship on Latin America rural landscapes; Alan G. Wilson, professor of urban and regional geography at the University of Leeds, for his modeling techniques to analyze geographic flows and structures; William A.V. Clark, professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, for studies examining population relocation within cities; Alan J. Scott, professor of geography at UCLA, for research on industrialization and urbanization within the context of social theory; and John Brinckerhoff Jackson, founder and editor of Landscape magazine, for his influence on the way people perceive ordinary landscapes. Also honored at the 83rd annual meeting of the AAG were Katherine K. Hirschboeck of Louisiana State University, recipient of the Nystrom Award, which recognizes recent Ph.D. recipients for outstanding dissertations in geography; John A. Alwin, who received the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize for his popular Northwest Geographer Series of books on the geography of the Pacific Northeast; and Brian J.L. Berry, professor of political economy and Founders Professor of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, who received the James R. Anderson Medal of Honor in Applied Geography for his contributions to the field of urban economic geography. Brian E. Henderson, director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center and chairman of the department of preventative medicine at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, received the 1987 Richard and Hinds Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Association for Cancer Research. Henderson was presented the $1,000 award for "demonstrating the important association of diet and hormones in the causation of breast cancer...." The Rosenthal Award honors medical practitioners under the age of 50 whose investigations have contributed to improved clinical care in the field of cancer. Deaths Marc Arnold Aaronson, 36, an award-winning astronomer who contributed to the discovery that the universe is smaller and younger than previously thought, was crushed to death between a door and a 150-ton revolving telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory on April 30. Aaronson, an associate professor of astronomy since 1977 at the University of Arizona and an associate astronomer at Steward Observatory, received his undergraduate degree in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1972 and his graduate degrees from Harvard in 1974 and 1977. Aaronson and astronomer Jeremy R. Mould were the 1984 recipients of the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society, which recognizes outstanding achievement by astronomers age 35 or younger. They were honored for determining that the universe is 12 billion, rather than the 20 billion, years old—a result of their 1979 discovery of an error in the Hubble Constant, used to determine the distance between objects in space. Aaronson's death marks the first time in more than 100 years that an astronomer was killed while working at a telescope. He is survived by a wife and two sons. Ralph L.E. Seifert Sr., a professor emeritus of chemistry at Indiana University who specialized in electrochemical analysis of molten salts, died April23 in Bloomington, Ind. He was 73 years old. Seifert taught chemistry at Alma College in Michigan from 1938 to 1944, serving as chairman of the chemistry department during part of that time. He then worked at the metallurgical laboratory of the University of Chicago, and in 1946 moved to Carleton College in Minnesota, becoming chairman of the department of chemistry at Carleton two years later. In 1949 Seifert was named associate professor of chemistry at Indiana University and was made a full professor in 1966. His research in physical chemistry lead to an appointment on the advisory board of the Journal of Physical Chemistry in 1967. Seifert retired from Indiana University in 1978. New Publications Conservation Biology, a new quarterly from the Society for Conservation Biology, premiers this month. The journal, published by Blackwell Scientific, will cover current research and scientific thought ranging from mathematical theory to the management of nature reserves and national parks by aboriginal peoples. Also examined will be issues in the protection of biological diversity, sustainable resource use and development, and integration of the social and biological sciences. Annual membership to the society, which includes a subscription to Conservation Biology, is $27; nonmembers pay $85. Contact: Blackwell Scientific, 52 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02108; (617) 720-0761. New Developments in Biotechnology: Ownership of Human Tissues and Cells examines the legal, economic and ethical issues related to the development of human tissues and cells for research. The study, prepared by the Office of Technology Assessment, also presents several policy options regarding the commercialization of human biological materials and the regulation of research with human subjects. This is the first of a series of six reports that will discuss the release of genetically engineered organisms, public attitudes toward biotechnology, and the impact of intellectual property law on the field. The cost for the first report (GPO stock no. 052-003-01060-7) is $7.50. Contact: U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402; (202) 783-3238. American Philosophical Society Elects 14 Scientists Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, the American Philosophical Society is the oldest learned society in America, and one of the most prestigious. Last month 23 new members were elected to its ranks and Eliot Stellar, professor of physiological psychology at the Institute of Neurological Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, was elected to a three-year term as president. Of the new APS members, 14 are scientists: Robert Austrian, professor emeritus of research medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. George Beitzel, retired senior vice president and director, IBM Corp. Michael S. Brown, Paul J. Thomas Professor of Medicine and Genetics and director of the Center for Genetic Disease, University of Texas Health Science Center. Dallas. W. Maxwell Cowan, provost and vice chancellor, Washington University. Sidney David Drell, professor, deputy director, Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University. Joseph L. Goldstein, Paul J. Thomas Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and chairman, department of molecular genetics, University of Texas Health Science Center, Dallas. Crawford H. Greenewalt Jr., professor of classical archaeology, University of California, Berkeley. James Edward Gunn, Higgins Professor of Astronomy, Princeton University. Cyril Manton Harris, Charles Batchelor Professor of Electrical Engineering and professor of architecture, Columbia University. Charles P. Klndelberger II, professor emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jean-Marie Pierre Lehn (foreign member), professor of chemistry, University of Strasbourg, and professor of chemistry, College de France. Floyd G. Lounsbury, Sterling Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, Yale University. Jerrold Melnwald, Goldwin Smith Professor of Chemistry, Cornell University. Louis Nirenberg, professor of mathematics. Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.

Happenings

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