Notebook

Contents Attention, Shoppers Ground-Breaking Discoveries The Streak Continues Bioengineers Find A Home Next Its Sweat and Tears Cleaner Living Through Chemistry Winning Rubes Flake Fate Just Say An announcement in a March 31 issue of Update, a newsletter of the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR), that a guide to socially responsible corporations will delete positive references to animal research has resulted in "a big misunderstanding," according to an author of the guide. Update reported that future issues of Shopping for a Better World--available from the New York-based Council on Economic Priorities--will change the sentences "The cures for polio and diabetes . . . were found through research that used animals to test for lifesaving medicine and to gather knowledge about biological processes" and "Without more animal-testing research, we might never find a cure for AIDS or cancer." Rosalyn Will, principal author of the 1994 edition of Shopping for a Better World, says that many NABR members heeded the newsletter's suggestion to contact the council with their views on the matter. "We have never said we were going to take out what we have in there," asserts Will. In the sentences, she maintains, the phrase "cures" will be changed to "treatments" in reference to diabetes and polio, since no cures for these diseases currently exist. In addition, Will says, the first section of future editions of the guide will include "supporting paragraphs from each side" of the animal-rights debate. Animal-rights and biomedical-research advocates who will comment on the issue have not yet been selected, she notes. DIGGING MONGOLIA : U.S.-Mongolian joint team uncovered a wealth of dinosaur, lizard and mammal fossils at Ukhaa Tolgod, including this skull of a placental mammal. A joint paleontological team from the American Museum of Natural History and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences has published early results from the unusually abundant and well-preserved fossil site discovered at Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia, in 1993 (D. Dashzeveg et al., Nature, 374 :446-9, March 30, 1995). "It was almost as if we had stumbled upon a giant dinosaur graveyard where, just a few moments before, these animals had given their last gasp," says Michael J. Novacek, an expedition leader and senior vice president and provost at the museum. The 80-million-year-old, late-Cretaceous site has so far yielded fossil remains of almost 100 dino-saurs, 216 lizards, and 187 early mammals. The mammal fossils may be among the most important findings at Ukhaa Tolgod, ac-cording to the scientists, because of the light they may shed on a crucial period in mammalian evolution. An extinct mammal group called the multituberculates is especially well represented by 169 skulls--as opposed to only 18 for placental and marsupial mammals. Other highlights of the findings at Ukhaa Tolgod--which means "brown hills"--include the first known embryo of a carnivorous dinosaur known as a theropod, still curled in its egg. Only a half-dozen other dinosaur embryos are known. The ongoing paleontological studies at Ukhaa Tolgod are part of a growing number of East-West scientific collaborations. Such joint work has accelerated since Mongolia's peaceful democratic revolution in 1992 (K.Y. Kreeger, The Scientist, Jan. 9, 1995, page 1). For the seventh year in a row, the University of California, Davis, has been recognized as awarding the greatest number of doctoral degrees in the biosciences, based on data from a recently released report by the National Research Council (NRC), Summary Report: 1993 Doctorates Received from United States Universities (Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1995). The report shows UC-Davis having conferred 123 biological sciences Ph.D.'s in 1992-93, the latest year for which numbers are available. The school has topped the list since 1986-87, the first year that the report included a table showing doctorates by institution and major field. For a copy of the report, contact the Doctorate Records Project, NRC, Room TJ, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418; (202) 334-3161. Fax: (202) 334-2753. Biomedical engineers now have a place to call cyberhome, with the help of a grant from the Washington,D.C.-based Whitaker Foundation. A new internet base just for them, dubbed BMEnet, is available via the World Wide Web (http://bme.www.ecn.purdue.edu/bme), via Gopher (gopher://fairway.ecn.purdue.edu), and by E-mail (whitaker@ecn.purdue.edu). Those perusing BMEnet can access such items as electronically published bioengineering journals, research funding sources, job opportunities, conference and meeting notices, scientific societies, and Usenet newsgroups. For more information, contact Frank Blanchard at the Whitaker Foundation, (202) 408-1505. E-mail: fb@whitaker.org. While baseball purists were gnashing their teeth over the prospect of replacement players this year, some researchers were having more success trying out replacement blood. The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is testing a novel blood substitute made with a chemical that disguises it from the body's immune system to prevent it from being attacked as a foreign substance. The chemical, poyethyleneglycol (PEG), is combined with bovine hemoglobin, the protein of red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. The process was developed by Enzon Inc. of Piscataway, N.J. UMDNJ researchers believe the product, called PEG-hemoglobin, has potential as an emergency blood supply and even as a cancer treatment. Its use requires no typing or cross-matching and eliminates the possibility of acquiring blood-borne human infections. In addition, it has a longer shelf life and possibly greater oxygen-carrying potential than that of human hemoglobin, according to Richard D. Huhn, acting director of the Clinical Research Center at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who is principal investigator for the study. In addition, the product has proved effective, when combined with radiation treatments, in killing or shrinking radiation-resistant solid tumors in dogs, Huhn says. It is currently in Phase I clinical trials at UMDNJ, and thus far has produced no adverse reactions, he reports. There are 1,500 known end uses for glycerine, including major applications in cosmetics and toiletries, food and beverages, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and surface-coating resins and polymers. Nonetheless, the New York-based Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) is looking for a few more. SDA is soliciting papers for the 1995 Recognition Award for Innovative Uses of Glycerine. The competition is sponsored by SDA's Oleochemical Division to recognize innovative research, development, and commercial application of glycerine. Applicants must submit a short paper (1,000-word limit) describing the proposed application and its potential commercial use. The winner will receive a $1,000 honorarium and a commemorative plaque at the next SDA annual meeting, to be held Jan. 24-28, 1996. Last year's winners, a research team from German chemical company Akzo Nobel, described using glycerine as a key building block for novel fabric softener active ingredients (polyol esterquats). Deadline for paper submission is September 1. For information, contact SDA, Oleochemical Division, 475 Park Ave. South, New York, N.Y. 10016; (212) 725-1262. Fax: (212) 213-0685. The home team--Purdue University's "Gluttons for Pun-ishment" (Notebook, The Scientist, Mar. 20, 1995, page 20)--recaptured the national title in the eighth annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest held on March 25. For the first time since 1991, the five-foot-tall Goldberg trophy once again resides at Purdue. This year's challenge in the annual homage to engineering inefficiency was to build a machine that used at least 20 impractical steps to turn on a radio. The Gluttons--a team of eight science and engineering majors--won with their 39-step contraption of radio-related visual puns. A punny sample: railroad tracks represented an eight-track tape player and a toy dog and duck filled in for a stereo-speaker woofer and tweeter. Vernard Foley, a contest judge and associate professor of history at Purdue, said the competition was stiff, but "we felt the Purdue machine especially captured the spirit of Rube Goldberg by making fun of technology itself." The contest honors the late cartoonist Rube Goldberg, whose drawings depicted complex machines performing simple tasks. FROZEN IN TIME: Scanning electron micrograph of a snowflake, used to help predict snowpack runoff. The intricate detail of a winter's snowflake on a mountainside could be the portent of bigger, wetter things to come for rivers flowing along a valley floor in spring, say two researchers at the United States Department of Agriculture. USDA microscopists William P. Wergin and Eric F. Erbe have devised a method to take scanning electron micrographs of snowflakes, which can help hydrologists predict spring runoff levels from mountain snowpacks. In a race against time, the flakes are flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen before they melt and coated in a thin layer of platinum to ready them for the camera. Magnified at up to 40,000 times their original size, the minutiae of a flake's shape will be used in hydrological computer models. Because the amount of water stored in snowpacks varies greatly with the size and shape of snow crystals, the information is expected to provide the models with more accurate predictive power. In the western U.S., nearly 75 percent of the water babbling in brooks and rushing in rivers comes from snowmelt. Having more accurate data for spring water forecasts aids farmers, ranchers, and hydropower plant operators in planning water use, according to the scientists. With new X-ray equipment, Wergin and Erbe's technique will also allow environmental scientists to measure the amount of such pollutants as sulfur in falling snow. The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) in the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is making $2.3 million in grants available for projects demonstrating that alcohol, tobacco, and other drug problems can be reduced through effective communications strategies. Three populations--adolescent females aged 12 to 20, Native Americans, and "field-selected and justified populations at high risk"--have been targeted for projects designed to develop and disseminate public information and education about these substance-abuse problems. The awards are made as cooperative agreements, which involve substantial participation by federal staff in the projects. For more information, contact the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information's online service, PREVline. The World Wide Web address is www.health.org and the direct-dial BBS number is (301) 770-0850. Applications may also be requested by calling CSAP at (301) 443-0373.

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May 1995

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