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Photo: C. Garasi, C. Galino, N. Miller, A. Simon, J. & B. Peterson and the NMSU Visualization Center (scanning) 'WAKE-UP CALL': Comet Hale-Bopp could help illustrate the dangers of superstition, according to codiscoverer Alan Hale. He helped to discover Comet Hale-Bopp, science's biggest media darling since Dolly the cloned sheep, but astronomer Alan Hale has more earthly concerns these days. The adjunct professor of astronomy at New Mexico State University is worried about how difficult the funding situation has made it for young scientists to launch careers, and is hoping to use his newfound fame to bring attention to the problem. Hale has circulated an E-mail message asking for "horror stories" from colleagues who have encountered heavy competition while looking for jobs, gone from one postdoctoral fellowship to another, left science altogether, and so on. He plans to share the stories with the press and government officials. "I want to ask, do we want to keep going this way?" he tells The Scientist. Last month's mass suicide of 39 San Diego-area cult members who believed Hale-Bopp would take them to heaven "could be a good wake-up call," contends Hale, who was not surprised when he heard the news. "As a scientist I battle ignorance and superstition and science illiteracy almost every day of my career. I fully expected there to be suicides over Hale-Bopp." Anyone with a tale to share should E-mail it to ahale@nmsu.edu. Hale suggests writing "'horror stories' or something like that" in the subject box. WINNERS: Penn’s Virginia M.-Y. Lee and John Q. Trojanowski are among five Met Life Award recipients. On March 31, five researchers received the Metropolitan Life Foundation Awards for Medical Research in Alzheimer's disease (AD). They were presented with a total of $500,000 in personal prizes and research funds at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. Neuropsychologist Brenda Milner, the Dorothy J. Killam Professor of Cognitive Neurosciences at McGill University, received a $50,000 personal prize and a $200,000 research grant for the school. She was honored for her work on memory loss and its relation to AD. Four other scientists were recognized jointly for their work on paired helical filaments (PHFs), a twisted neuronal mass-commonly known as "tangles"-that accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. They were Michel Goedert, a member of the scientific staff of the Medical Research Council at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Yasuo Ihara, director of the Institute for Brain Research at the University of Tokyo; and Virginia M.-Y. Lee and John Q. Trojanowski, codirectors of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. Each received a $12,500 personal prize. Goedert, who demonstrated that the protein tau is the major component of PHFs, was given $50,000 for research at his laboratory. Ihara, who also received $50,000 for his institute, discovered many of the unique biochemical properties of PHFs, including their immunochemical identity. Lee and Trojanowski jointly received $100,000 for their center. They study the role of abnormal tau biochemistry in AD pathology (Hot Papers, The Scientist, Feb. 19, 1996, page 13). Lee and Trojanowski have collaborated with both Ihara and Goedert. Commenting on the nature of AD research, Trojanowski remarks that "all four of us have been competitive in the best spirit of a sporting event, but we also collaborate. It was very special for all of us to win it together." AIM HERE: Johns Hopkins' Kenneth Kinzler thinks a newly discovered pathway will provide better targets for anti-cancer drugs. Researchers have identified a biological pathway that may be responsible for turning cells cancerous. If the scientists are correct, the pathway may play a role in the birth of as many as 90 percent of colon cancers. "It's exciting because it provides a target [for drug therapy]," says Kenneth Kinzler, associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center. Kinzler, along with colleagues at Johns Hopkins and at the University Hospital in Utrecht, the Netherlands, pinpointed a pathway associated with a tumor- suppressor gene called APC, which is mutated in some 85 percent of all colon cancers. Tumor-suppressor genes are conspicuous by their absence: When working correctly, they prevent cancer formation. But when they malfunction or are absent, cancer may develop. The scientists found that a mutated APC results in overactivity by two other genes. Those genes, ß-catenin and Tcf, are part of a pathway of genes that communicate through the production of proteins to regulate cell growth and death. A mutated APC gene causes proteins made by ß-catenin and Tcf to continue to prompt cells to grow, but not die. The result is colon cancer. Kinzler thinks that drugs that block the ß-catenin and Tcf gene functions-which is what a normal APC does-could fix the pathway. The scientists reported their findings on March 21 in a pair of papers in Science (J. Korinek et al., 275:1784-7; P.J. Morin et al., 275:1787-90). In a third paper (B. Rubinfeld et al., 275:1790-2), scientists at the National Cancer Institute and Onyx Pharmaceuticals in Richmond, Calif., found that mutations in ß-catenin play a role in roughly 25 percent of melanoma cases. AMBITIOUS: Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) believes the time is ripe for developing a new national science policy. Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) has some ambitious plans for the next year-and-a-half: By the end of 1998, he hopes to develop a comprehensive national science policy for the next 50 years. Ehlers, vice chairman of the House Committee on Science, soon will begin congressional hearings to review current federal policies and to determine priorities. The University of California, Berkeley-trained physicist calls "Science: The Endless Frontier," the report by former Office of Scientific Research and Development director Vannevar Bush that set U.S. science policy after World War II, "out of date." Ehlers contends that a policy review is long overdue given the end of the Cold War, changes in defense spending, and shrinking federal science budgets. "Plus, I've had a long interest in doing it." Three major areas will be addressed: long-range science and technology policy; science and mathematics education; and the Committee on Science's role as a liaison between Congress and the science community. The review will examine potential spending in a number of areas, such as the Human Genome Project, life sciences, high-energy physics, and the space station, he explains. Ehlers, who says he's supported by Committee on Science chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), believes that little can be accomplished "unless Congress and the White House buy into it." Shortly after being named manager of editorial services at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Thomas A. Lang found himself editing medical research papers and reading statistical presentations. Lang, who is not a statistician, decided he needed to know more about the subject. But his search failed to turn up "any mother lode" of information about statistics in medicine. Thus was born How to Report Statistics in Medicine: Annotated Guidelines for Authors, Editors and Reviewers (Philadelphia, American College of Physicians, 1997). The new book, which Lang cowrote with foundation senior biostatistician Michelle Secic, contains nearly 400 guidelines dealing with statistical presentation and analysis commonly seen in biomedical literature. Lang reports that surveys reveal half of papers published contain major statistical errors, some so great as to call the authors' conclusions into question. The irony, according to Lang, is that in the statistics world, the concepts in question are basic ones. "The problem is long-standing, widespread, concerned with basic issues, poorly addressed, and potentially serious, and nobody's done anything about it." >ISSUE NO. 1: The Undergraduate Journal of Science premieres next month. The first issue of an undergraduate student-run scientific journal is slated to appear early next month. According to editor-in-chief Jason Moore, the Undergraduate Journal of Science, produced at Texas A&M University, is one of the first publications of its kind in the United States. "There are quite a few undergraduate-authored and -published publications. For example, the Yale Scientific is a small magazine that has undergraduates who write about science- related topics, but it's not a research journal," observes Moore, a graduate student in science and technology journalism at Texas A&M. "My understanding is that we're one of the few or the only full-sized science journal that's designed for undergraduate students to publish their research. From start to finish, it's student-authored, - reviewed, -edited, and -published." Moore says that the first issue will contain six original research articles by Texas A&M undergrads, a section on science news, an ethics forum, and invited letters. At this point, plans are for the journal to be published twice yearly. Review and oversight of the journal's content are governed by an editorial committee composed of undergraduate students from many disciplines, including biochemistry, genetics, psychology, and engineering. For more information, contact Moore at the Department of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-4111; Tel:(409) 862-7714. Fax: (409) 845-5408. E-mail: jmoore@tamu.edu. World Wide Web: http://acs.tamu.edu/~ujs/. Several groups are seeking nominations for various grants, prizes, and scholarships. The Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) will award $4,000 to the author of the best 500-word essay on how Current Contents, ISI's scientific current-awareness database, has helped his or her research. The deadline for submissions is September 30. For more information, contact Evette Fearon-Bennett, ISI's associate marketing manager, at 3501 Market St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19104-3389. Fax: (215) 387-1125. E-mail: efearonb@isinet.com. World Wide Web: http://www.isinet.com. The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IoM) is accepting nominations for the 12th annual Gustav O. Lienhard Award, which consists of a medal and $25,000 and recognizes outstanding achievement in improving health-care services in the United States. The deadline for nominations is June 13. Contact Cynthia Abel of IoM's Lienhard Award Committee, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418. American, Canadian, and Mexican junior and senior high school students are invited to compete for the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, which honors water-quality and conservation projects. Finalists win $500, a one-year student membership in the Water Environment Federation (WEF), a plaque, and a trip to Stockholm with their teachers. The winner receives $4,500. The United States, Canada, and Mexico will send one finalist apiece to Stockholm. These winners will be chosen from among 1,200 competitors at the May 10-16 International Science and Engineering Fair in Louisville, Ky. Call the WEF public information office at (703) 684-2400 or point your Web browser to http://www.wef.org. In the category of research grants, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation again is conducting its New Faculty Awards and Faculty Start- up Grant programs. The deadline for nominations is May 15. Contact the foundation at 555 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022-3303; (212) 753-1760. E-mail: admin@dreyfus.org. World Wide Web: http://www.dreyfus.org.

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