Issue | June 1991 | June 1991 | The Scientist Magazine®

News

Soviets See Market Forces As Salvation For Science In Post-Perestroika Period

LENINGRAD--Dimitry Filotov is an unlikely scientific pioneer. The 30-year-old physicist, who wears a windbreaker and blue jeans in his lab and sports a shaggy head of hair, is not a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the prestigious organization that dominates the country's scientific enterprise through its network of some 350,000 scientists and technicians at about 500 research institutes. Nor does he drive a Mercedes Benz, the Soviet Union's most visible status symbol. In fact, at the

Botanists Ply Trade In Tropics, Seeking Plant-Based Medicinals

A renewed interest in ancient pharmaceuticals spurs debate over the extent to which natives should be compensated Lisa Conte, president of two-year-old Shaman Pharmaceuticals in San Carlos, Calif., needed a way for her company to find new therapeutic agents to compete with massive drug-screening efforts and biotechnology-based drug-discovery initiatives waged by the major pharmaceutical companies. The strategy she came up with was to look for leads from plant-based, non-Western medicines used

Research Funds Go Begging, As NIH Minority Plan Gets Feeble Response

While the agency's program to encourage recruitment of minority investigators is said to be `marvelous,' few grantees apply for it WASHINGTON--Nursing professors Irene Lewis and Faye Whitney think they can spot a good thing. And a program that gives scientists as much as $50,000 a year to add a minority investigator onto National Institutes of Health grants is, as far as they are concerned, one of the best deals around. NIH grantee Whitney, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylv

NSF Carves Out Elite Fellowship From Existing Faculty Awards

WASHINGTON--The National Science Foundation has quietly launched a new, highly selective program of research awards to young faculty. The initiative, to be called the Presidential Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows program, will offer more money than and have different ground rules from those of the existing Presidential Young Investigators (PYI) award, which will now be called simply the NSF Young Investigators Program. And more than a name change may be afoot for the original PYI progra

FASEB Honors Berkeley Biochemist For His 'Mitochondrial Eve' Research

For His `Mitochondrial Eve' Research Allan C. Wilson, who used DNA to trace the origin of modern humans to a woman living 200,000 years ago, has received the 1991 3M Life Sciences Award, presented by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). The $25,000 award, sponsored annually by the Minneapolis-based 3M Corp. since 1975, was presented to Wilson in Atlanta at the annual meeting of FASEB, held in April. Wilson is a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry a

Notebook

Loose Lips Sink Budgets, Says Massey Out Of The Ashes Of The Space Station No Silly Questions, Please Too Much Of A Good Thing With Congress once again poised to cut out start-up funds for the proposed $211 million Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), NSF Director Walter Massey is blaming scientists for helping to wield the knife. In March, astrophysicist Tony Tyson of AT&T Bell Labs told the House science committee that LIGO won't be sensitive enough to measure

Opinion

We Must Face The Funding Shortfall With New Ideas, Bold Action

Although being an advocate for science has always been rewarding for me, I've recently become somewhat hesitant on the matter--my hesitancy, in part, reflecting the difficulty that a number of my colleagues and I have encountered when speaking about biomedical research policy in Washington.

Radical Proposal For Reorganizing Research Support: Lotteries, Prizes

It's hard to escape the sense of concern in the scientific community that something has gone awry with the mechanisms by which public funds are allocated for research. Before putting forth several proposals for change in the current arrangement, I feel it is important to point out certain realities--moral hazards, perhaps--that must be taken into consideration by anyone presuming to tamper with the status quo: * A robust government demands answers for the investment of public wealth, whereas a

Letter

For Kids' Sake

Having read the April 1, 1991, issue of The Scientist, I thought readers might be interested to know that several societies other than those mentioned in the article "Child Care Still a Rarity at Meetings" [page 1] have similar activities. The American Society of Plant Physiologists (ASPP), the American Society for Horticultural Sciences, and the American Society of Agronomy all have divisions or committees dealing with issues facing women in their respective fields. These committees have raise

Earthquake Rumblings

Your February 18 article on earthquake science [page 15], which discussed the fallout from Iben Browning's prediction last fall of an earthquake in southeast Missouri, raises several issues that deserve further examination. One could legitimately argue that the media overplayed the affair. But I was stunned by geologist Max Wyss's contention that the media "did not bother to challenge or check the scientific validity of the forecast," and by his gratuitous remark that "reporters have to double

Unabashed Uncitedness

"To be an uncited scientist is no cause for shame." It needed to be said, and Eugene Garfield was the right person to say it [The Scientist, March 18, 1991, page 12]. When the news on uncited papers first came out, I immediately thought of the people it would hurt. Science now demands speedy, measurable success, and being uncited can be disastrous to one's career. Guilt should not be added to worry. An uncited paper may contribute to science. Someone thinks of idea n. Idea n+1 comes along even

Commentary

Confronting Scientists ' Normal Ethical Dilemmas

The recent furor over fabricated data in a paper of which Nobel laureate David Baltimore is a coauthor raises serious questions about the scientific community's approach to ethical issues. It also provides an opportunity for scientists to acknowledge and confront a broad array of ethical dilemmas that will never attract media attention, but can undermine science as much as the blatant violations that do make headlines. Many scientists' reactions to media accounts of scientific misconduct are

Research

`Natural' Insecticide Research: Still Working Out The Bugs

R.G. McDaniel, a University of Arizona plant geneticist, holds a patent on a flowering plant that grows in Arizona. The plant produces a "natural insecticide" that is lethal to insects yet is relatively safe for consumption by humans and warm-blooded mammals. Meanwhile, in Independence, Oreg., Krishen Bhat, the vice president for research at an agricultural company called Botanical Resources--a subsidiary of John I. Haas Co., the major hops refinery in the United States--is hurriedly working to

Articles Alert

Microbial ice nucleation is important biotechnology for three reasons. First, preventing ice crystal formation using deletion mutants is a way to prevent frost damage; that is, "frost-ban" Pseudomads are a marketable product. Second, stimulating snow formation on artificial ski slopes extends the season; that is, ice-nucleating Pseudomonads are another marketable product. Third, the field testing of the "frost-ban" cells on strawberry plants occasioned some of the most emotional responses to rel

Materials Science

THEODORE DAVIDSON: Institute of Materials Science University of Connecticut Storrs Liquid crystal phase behavior is exhibited by certain organic molecules called mesogens. Some moieties that are not themselves mesogens can induce this property when suspended by molecular spacers from the backbone of a flexible polymer chain. These "side-chain" liquid crystal polymers can be aligned by electric, magnetic, or shear fields, and some exhibit nonlinear optical effects. R.B. Findlay, T.J. Lemmon, A.

Articles Alert

BRUCE G. BUCHANAN: Department of Computer Science University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Traditional expert systems deal with problems whose descriptions do not change in the course of problem solving. In the monitoring of dynamic processes, however, this assumption is violated. P. Morizet-Mahoudeaux, "Maintaining consistency of a database during monitoring of an evolving process by a knowledge-based system," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 21, 47-60, January/February 1991. (Un

Articles Alert

DENNIS P. CURRAN: Department of Chemistry University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh The isolation of C60 was one of the most significant developments of 1990. This short review conveys the current excitement in this new field and heralds future developments not only in chemistry but also in materials science. J.F. Stoddart, "The third allotropic form of carbon," Angewandte Chemie--International Edition in English, 30, 70-71, January 1991. (University of Birmingham, England) Synthetic reactions that

Articles Alert

The anatomical distribution of pathological changes in the brain in early stages of Alzheimer's disease is selective for the endorhinal cortex of the ventromedial temporal lobe and the hippocampal formation, known to be important for long-term memory. Progress on understanding the pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease could lead to a better understanding of memory mechanisms as well as treatments. G.W. Van Hoesen, B.T. Hyman, A.R. Damasio, "Entorhinal cortex pathology in Alzheimer's disease,"

Hot Paper

Molecular Biology - 2

T. Braun, E. Bober, B. Winter, N. Rosenthal, H.H. Arnold, "Myf-6, a new member of the human gene family of myogenic determination factors: evidence for a gene cluster on chromosome 12," EMBO Journal, 9:821-31, 1990. Thomas Braun (University of Hamburg Medical School, Germany): "Starting with the initial observation that a single genomic locus appears sufficient to initiate myogenesis in mouse 10T1/2 fibroblasts, we have identified at least four distinct gene products that possess this myogenic

Molecular Biology - 1

G.W. Vasios, J.D. Gold, M. Petkovich, P. Chambon, L.J. Gudas, "A retinoic acid-responsive element is present in the 5' flanking region of the laminin B1 gene," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 86:9099-103, 1989. George W. Vasios (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston): "Retinoids such as vitamin A and retinoic acid (RA), when exogenously applied in experimental systems, exert profound effects on vertebrate development, as well as on the process of malignant transformation in viv

Medicine - 2

J. Varga, J. Peltonen, J. Uitto, S. Jimenez, "Development of diffuse fasciitis with eosinophilia during L-tryptophan treatment: Demonstration of elevated type I collagen gene expression in affected tissues," Annals of Internal Medicine, 112:344-51, 1990. John Varga and Sergio Jimenez (Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia): "In November 1989, the Centers for Disease Control alerted the medical community to a nationwide epidemic of a previously unrecognized illness associated with ingestion

Medicine

R.M. Silver, M.P. Heyes, J.C. Maize, B. Quearry, et al., "Scleroderma, fasciitis, and eosinophilia associated with the ingestion of tryptophan," New England Journal of Medicine, 322:874-81, 1990. Richard M. Silver (Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston): "We described the clinical and histopathological findings in nine patients who developed what is now known as the eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS) associated with ingestion of L-tryptophan, comparing and contrasting them to other

Uncategorized

SCIENTISTS TO WATCH

SCIENTISTS TO WATCH (The Scientist, Vol:5, #12, pg. 19, June 10, 1991) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- One way to learn how to be effective on television is to spend some time watching the masters at work. "Phil Morrison does a fantastic job," says University of Chicago physicist Leon Lederman. "He's a real pro at this." Paula Apsell, executive producer of the Public Broadcasting System's "Nova," calls Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Morrison the "c

Profession

From The Lab To The Tube: Surviving Television Appearances

One nagging thought stuck in Leon Lederman's mind as he was being interviewed on ABC's "Nightline." It had nothing to do with his Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. Rather, it concerned the effect of adhesive tape on epidermis. A microphone was affixed to the University of Chicago physicist with duct tape because the cord that should have held it around his neck was missing. "All I could think of was how much it was going to hurt when they took it off," recalls Lederman. Ah, the glamorous worl

Japanese Corporate Consortium Funds Chair At University Of Alaska

In an elegantly staged ceremony in Tokyo last November, representatives from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and from Japan's Committee for Energy Policy Promotion (CEPP) made history. Seated at a table overflowing with flowers and festooned with the flags of Japan and the United States, Syun-Ichi Akasofu, director of the university's Geophysical Institute, and Gaishi Hiraiwa, chairman of CEPP and of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., signed English and Japanese versions of an agreement establ

Duke University Immunologist Buckley Is Cited For Transplantation Research

Rebecca H. Buckley, J. Buren Sidbury Professor of Pediatrics and chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., has received the 29th annual National Board Award, recognizing a woman scientist or physician who has made significant contributions to health care. It is presented by the Philadelphia-based Medical College of Pennsylvania, the United States' first medical school for women. Buckley received the college's Presidential Medal and a $5,000 resea

Technology

Special Report: Software That Links Distant Researchers

For the many researchers who are comfortable with and knowledgeable about computers, shopping for communications software can be a pleasurable and educational experience. Yet for those who know little about computers, the task could be painful, if not expensive. These scientists would do well to first understand the whole process of how computers communicate. Scientific computing used to be largely confined to mainframe devices, with all necessary data, operations, and report generation per- f