November 1987

WASHINGTON—On November 6 the American Chemical Society will celebrate National Chemistry Day. The posters proclaiming that "chemistry is everywhere” are part of the society's campaign to blunt the impact of such environmental disasters as Bhopal and Love Canal and, at the same time, gain crdit for some of the recent advances in medicine and biotechnology. Even as ACS is looking outward, however, it is also trying to harmonize its dual roles as a professional society and as an advi

WASHINGTON—Ohio State University physicist William Palmer says he felt like “eollapsing in the corner” after working long hours to help his state complete its proposal for the Superconducting Supercollider. But the september 2 filing deadline was just the beginning of the race for the multi-billion-dollar high-energy physics project. Officials from Ohio and 24 other states barely had time to catch their breath before plunging ahead into the next phase of the campaign, which

BEIJING—Impressed by China’s example, more than 100 scientists from Asia, Africa and Latin America have resolved to improve scientific and technical cooperation within and between their countries. But the September meeting here adjourned with no consensus on specific proposals. “The secret of success is self-reliance plus a collective spirit, which I define as cooperation and coordination,” Lu Jiaxi, executive president of the Chinese Academy of Science, told delegate

WASHINGTON—The National Institutes of Health is tightening monitoring and information programs for researchers and other staff who handle the AIDS virus. The new effort follows the announcement October 8 that a second worker has become infected, apparently in an accident at an contract facility. Some scien tists have also questioned whether current safety guidelines are adequate to deal with the dangers posed by working with the virus. The new procedures will require workers in the inst

WASHINGTON—National Geographic magazine invited its readers to smell an armpit and, strangely enough, 1.5 million of them did. Readers put their noses to the grindstone as part of the magazine’s Smell Survey, a joint effort with the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia to sniff out data, on our olfactory sense. The data are now available to researchers. The September 1986 issue of the magazine included a scratch-and-sniff sheet (odorants encased in polymers) that conta

PARIS—American and British officials say that the selection of Spanish biochemist Federico Mayor Zaragoza as director-general of UNESCO is not enough to secure their return to the scientific and cultural agency they abandoned. But Mayor’s nomination October 18 by the 50-member executive board is being seen as an opportunity to correct some of the problems in spending and organization that have grown up during the 13-year reign of Senegal’s Amadou Mahear M’Bow. The 53-

ITHACA, N.Y.—Two years after its creation, the Reagan administration’s policy council for coordinating biotechnology regulation faces an uncertain future. Presidential science adviser William Graham has decided to replace the Biotechnology Science Coordinating Committee (BSCC) with a group more directly under his control. Two weeks ago he told THE SCIENTIST that “BSCC has been suspended. it is no longer in operation.” A clause in the BSCC charter required review and

OTTAWA—The Canadian Institute of Advanced Studies, which has lured home a number of Canadian scientists through its network of university research fellows (see THE SCIENTIST, April 20, p.1), has now sparked the formation of an industry consortium to put their findings to practical use. Precarn Associates Inc. is a nonprofit association of 22 corporations that, according to its prospectus, “will sponsor, manage and disseminate the results of longterm pre-competitive research projec

PHILADELPHIA—Nobel prizes in science normally recognize research of extraordinary excellence, as judged by literature citations to it and awards that have accumulated over a period of years. This year, however, the Nobel committee awarded the physics prize for recent research that illuminated the physical science community with the brilliance of a supernova. New physics laureates J. Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Milller, of IBM’s Zurich Research Labora tory, published their seminal pap

SYDNEY—Australian scientists are bracing for an era of tighter government funding for basic research following release of the federal budget. Although the country’s fiscal year began July 1, the new budget was not announced until mid-September because of elections held July 11. The delay was unsettling for Australia’s research community, which in one way or another derives about 80 percent of its support from the government. Government minister John Dawkins has bluntly to

WASHINGTON—Two recent public opinion surveys indicate that a substantial majority of adult Americans do not know what genetic engineering is and are ignorant of the ethical and scientific issues surrounding it. Nearly two in five people (39 percent) had not heard of genetic engineering, according to a survey conducted last spring for Novo Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company. The poll also found that nearly two-thirds of the remaining group—representing a total of 80 percent o

WASHINGTON—Thirty-Six states would like to be home to the central research facility for a proposed $250 million-a-year program aimed at developing cheaper and better semiconductors. Congress, spurred by concern over declining U.S. competitiveness, is preparing to pour up to $100 million a year into the joint government-industry venture. An industry panel assigned the task of picking a site for the semiconductor technology program—known as Sematech—has been “overwhelme

WASHINGTON—Since 1950, more than 2,000 Japanese researchers have passed through the National Institutes of Health—more than from any other foreign country. Now, in NIH’s centennial year, members of that group have formed the first NIH alumni association chapter overseas. Osamu Hayaishi, who in 195 1-52 was among the first Japanese scientists to visit NIH, said the NIH Alumni Association in Japan has been established “to express our gratitude to NIH and also to cultivat

DUBLIN—An environmental institute praised for the quality of its research is being closed by the Irish government as part of a new round of civil service cuts to combat the country’s financial crisis. About 100 environmental scientists expect to lose their jobs at the An Foras Forbartha (AFF), which was set up to do research and provide technical information for the Department of the Environment. AFF is the most serious of several blows to science in the government campaign to tr

LONDON—The 13-nation European Space Agency is expected to endorse a series of projects later this month that could boost the agency’s annual budget from $1.7 billion to $3 billion by 1993. The new efforts include a more powerful version of its Ariane satellite launcher, a manned Hermes spacecraft and the Columbus orbitbig laboratory that would be part of the U.S. space station. Hermes, which zoom into orbit atop the improved Ariane rocket, would give Western Europe its first opport

CHICAGO—A campaign to increase federal support for research and industrial applications of new technology began last month with a series of conferences held throughout the country. The conferences were designed both to garner support and thinking on new R&D initiatives and to provide regional views on global competitiveness and the declining technological status of the United States. Sponsored by the businessoriented Conference Board and the Council on Research and Technology (CORETECH

OSLO—Last year’s slump in oil prices not only ended a heady period of growth for Norway’s economy, but it also plunged the nation into its worst fiscal crisis in decades. Despite these problems, the government’s firm belief in the value of technological development has led to a promise to increase R&D spending significantly over the next five years. Norway’s continued commitment to science is made possible in part by its having prepared during the recent boom ye

Thomas R. Odhiambo, founder and director of ICIPE (the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology) in Nairobi. has won international recognition for his efforts as a scientist, educator and administrator to mobilize support for science in Africa. As a child in Kenya he developed a curiosity about wasps that helped inspire his later studies at Makerere University in Uganda and at Cambridge University in England, where he received a Ph.D. in insect physiology in 1965. After stints as

Q:Must traditional folk practices in Africa be abandoned for the scientific culture to flourish? ODHIAMBO: I don’t think so. In fact, if you analyze folklore, particularly storytelling, there’s a tremendous amount of natural history in it. All one has to do is translate what is being stated into more modern language—simply make those stories current. I don’t see a conflict at all between the traditional knowledge base and the modem technology base. I think we can use th

All my life—or at least from the time I knew what astronomy was—I wanted to be an astronomer. But being an astronomer has not turned out to involve doing the kinds of things I imagined when I decided to go to graduate school 25 years ago. I went to Carleton College, one of the best of the small midwestern liberal arts schools. Influenced by the commitment of my professors to teaching, I planned to become a teacher at a school like Carleton. A physics professor, however, convinc

THE INFINITE VOYAGE “Unseen Worlds,” Part 1 of a 12-part, 3-year television series to be shown on PBS and selected commercial stations. Produced by WQED/ Pittsburgh in association with the National Academy of Sciences with funding from Digital Equipment Corp. The latest big, respectable, complicated television series about science is The Infinite Voyage. Its subtitle (and stated organizing principle) is “The Great Adventure of Scientific Exploration and Discovery.” B

Last spring I pointed to student participation in research as a way to improve undergraduate science education and promised to focus subsequently on precollege science education. (THE SCIENTIST, March 23, 1987, p. 9.) One key strategy for improving science education is the revitalization of elementary and secondary school math instruction. Mathematics is said to be the “queen of the sciences.” Indeed, it is basic to achievement in almost every field of science. But in the court

As editor of a popular science magazine, I read Bruce Lewenstein’s article on the “arrogance” of popular science magazines (July 13, 1987, p. 12) and Isaac Asimov’s dissenting letter (September 7, 1987, p. 10) with great interest. They’re both right. Lewenstein points out that the demise of Science ‘86, Science Digest, and SciQuest holds an important lesson: relevance is in the eye of the reader. Scientists may be excited by decaying protons, but most peopl

Innovation is the key to success in today’s world, with changes in technology, natural and human-caused changes in the environment and sociopolitical change taking place at an accelerating pace. To innovate successfully, we must take advantage of the natural resource sciences. Millions of dollars can be lost while research is waiting to be published researchers end up doing things that are not effective, or wasting opportunities to do things that are. I suggest that we utilize the new co

For several years I’ve been trying to sell people on an idea I have that derives from my deep appreciation of the talents of the Latin American scientists I’ve encountered over the past 30 years. These scientists are to be found in laboratories all over the world, usually as valued and honored émigrés or refugees from some political crisis. This idea is available to any statesman who would like to become at least as immortal as Fulbright or Rhodes. It is this: the United

Frank Barnaby’s article “The Pugwash Conference Turns 30” (THE SCIENTIST, June 29, 1987, p. 11)is, on the whole, a fair assessment of the early accomplishments of Pugwash; but it does not do justice to its activities and development during the past decade. For example, Barnaby states that Pugwash “has already begun to fade away, leaving its goal of complete nuclear disarmament still totally unfulfilled.” That goal remains the centerpiece of Pugwash’s hope fo

Now, more than four years after President Reagan challenged American scientists “to give us the means of rendering.. nuclear weapons obsolete,” the technological optimism and political currency behind his Strategic Defense Initiative have peaked. Fair-minded studies by respected scientific experts provide sobering evidence that SDI’s reach exceeds its grasp. Many members of Congress are aware of SDI’s declining technical credibility, -increasingly unwilling to support

Two years after Hitler came to power, the Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller left Germany for the United States to escape politics and retreat into the laboratory. But no scientist in the 20th century has been more involved in politics than Teller. An eminent and controversial figure, Teller worked with many of the most brilliant scientists of his generation—Bohr, Fermi, Szilard and Oppenheimer. Often called “the father of the hydrogen bomb,” Teller is coming to be known a

THE FEATHERS FLY Is Archaeopteryx a Fake? A special temporary exhibition in the British Museum (Natural History), London, UK. Opened August 18, 1987. In 1985, the astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasing he wrote an article in the British Journal of Photography claiming that Archaeopteryx is a fake. An ordinary dinosaur fossil, they suggested, had been treated with a paste of powdered limestone, into which bird feathers had been pressed in order to create the illusion of an extraordin

STRENGTHENING U.S. ENGINEERING THROUGH INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Some Recommendations for Action. Committee on International Cooperation in Engineenng, National Academy of Engineering and Office of International Affairs, National Research Council, Washington, DC, 1987. 68 pp. In the earliest days of the American republic there were practically no home-bred engineers. As George Washington wrote in a letter to John Randolph, anyone wishing to dig a canal or build a bridge was obliged to R

THE BIOCHEMISTS’ SONGBOOK Cassette Tape. Harold Baum. Pergamon Press, Elmsford NY, 1983. $11. Songbook. Pergamon Press, 1982. 62 pp. $6.50. In the UK, Taylor & Francis, Rankine Road, Basingstoke, Hants RG24 OPR. There’s no doubt about it; Harold Baum is a phenomenon of modem day biology and biochemistry education. He authored the original Biochemists’ Songbook, which was published in 1982 with a charming introduction by Sir Hans Krebs. Then in 1984 Biorhythms 1 and Biorhyth

ARCHAEOLOGY The Birth of Prehistoric Chronology: Dating Methods and Dating Systems In Nineteenth Century Scandinavian Archaeology. Bo Graslund. Cambridge University Press November, 150 pp, $39.50. Traces the origin and subsequent development of dating systems, examining how these systems grew and were improved and refined. BIOCHEMISTRY Biochemistry of Metabolism: Volume 11. David D. Davies, ed. Academic Press: November, 388 pp, $85. Discusses the metabolism of plants, emphasizing the b

Physics National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). The world’s brightest source of X-ray and UV radiation, for basic and applied studies in condensed matter, surface studies, photochemistry and photophysics, lithography, crystallography, small-angle scattering and X-ray microscopy. Contact Roger Klaffky, National Synchrotron Light Source. Telephone: (516) 2824974. High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR). For the study of fundamental problems in solid state and nuclear physics and in structural b

Some aspects of small physics research require the use of large so phisticated facilities not normally available in research laboratories such as synchrotron radiation and neutron sources, powerful electron microscopes and large reactors. A brief description of 23 national facilities for research related to the physics of condensed matter thai are available to qualified scientists from other laboratories is found in “National Facilities for Research in the Physics of Condensed Matter,

The smaller and more specialized the scientific field being studied, the less predictable are changes in the factors that affect demand, such as scientific and technological advances, shifts in Federal funding priorities, and industrial research and development (R&D) spending. Small changes in the total supply of scientists and engineers can mask significant adjustment within and among fields. The total number of Ph.D.s awarded in science and engineering rose by 7 percent between 1980 and 1985

The Genome on A Patent Platter? Congress, of course, does not own the human genome; nor is there any way under American law for Congress to stake out hegemony over our double helix and transfer a portion of this hegemony to others. The key lies in appreciating the First Amendment. My notion is that the biological universe and our perceptions of that universe comprise an idea marketplace. Debate over competing theories of this biological reality lies at the core of free expression and presuppos

John Simpson, University of Chicago physicist, was named the third Martin Marietta Chair in Space History by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Simpson designed and built U.S. instruments that were carried aboard Soviet spacecraft to encounter Halley’s Comet in 1986. During his year as chair, he will work with the Air and Space Museum and the University of Chicago to prepare historical accounts of his accomplishments. G. Tom Shires, professor