Notebook

'SYSTEMATIC BIAS': Sharon Palmer claims Smith College's chemistry department discriminates against women. Sharon Palmer, an assistant professor of chemistry at Smith College who was denied tenure despite the unanimous recommendation of her department (B. Goodman, The Scientist, April 29, 1996, page 1), filed a suit last month in the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) alleging gender bias. The Northampton, Mass., college's seven-member Committee on Tenure and Promotion rejected the chemistry department's recommendation, citing questions about Palmer's "rate of scholarly activity." However, Palmer contends, her record of publication is similar to that of male faculty members at the time they were granted tenure. She filed a grievance protesting the decision; the grievance was denied in June. In a statement to MCAD, Palmer wrote, "Specifically, I allege that Smith created and knowingly tolerated conditions within its chemistry department wherein female tenure track faculty were subject to substantially different treatment and working conditions than male tenure track faculty." She also claimed the department's poor history of granting tenure to female faculty is a "systemic bias" that is readily apparent to observers, including an independent review committee of scholars who expressed alarm about the subordinate role and duties of women in the department. Smith College had 30 days to respond to Palmer's complaint; at press time, MCAD had not received a response. John Connolly, Smith's dean of faculty, notes that the college does not comment on individual personnel cases or pending litigation. However, he notes, "Our internal investigation shows that Ms. Palmer was treated fairly and in accordance with procedures." He adds that the college will "vigorously contest" the suit. BROAD MISSION: NIEHS's research agenda has expanded to incude new approaches, says director Kenneth Olden. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) celebrates the 30th anniversary of its founding next month. Over the last three decades, the Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based agency, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, has funded landmark studies on lead poisoning and endocrine disrupters, as well as breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers (K.Y. Kreeger, The Scientist, May 1, 1995, page 13). "We were created in 1966 in response to public concern about cancer, so our mission then was to research the role of the environment in the etiology of cancer," says director Kenneth Olden. In fact, he notes, in the institute's early days, "it was [informally] known as NCI [National Cancer Institute] South." More recently, the institute has broadened its mission to include investigations on such disorders as asthma, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, hypertension, and kidney disease, as well as apply molecular biological tools and approaches to toxicological testing. The anniversary celebration coincides with the opening of a 57,500-square-foot research wing that will include new lab space for 1994 Nobel laureate Martin Rodbell. BIO BOSS: William Harris takes the helm of Biosphere 2 Center next month. The new kid on the Biosphere 2 block is National Science Foundation official William Harris. On September 4, Columbia University, which has run the center's activities since January 1, named Harris executive director and president of Biosphere 2 Center. Biosphere 2, the 3.15-acre, self-proclaimed "innovative self-contained research and education facility" located outside Tucson, Ariz., is the world's largest enclosed artificial environment. Until recently, Biosphere 2 has been plagued by controversy. The facility was built in the late 1980s by a group of environmentalists as an attempt to better understand the workings of various Earth ecosystems (N. Sankaran, The Scientist, November 28, 1994, page 3) and to see if the enclosed environment could sustain humans on its own. The $150 million effort began in September 1991, when an eight-member team was sealed inside for two years. Among the problems encountered were an inadequate food supply, high carbon dioxide levels, poor management, and a lack of published scientific data. A nonprofit consortium-the Biosphere 2 Research Group-was formed by project executives and Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., to set a new course of action. During the last eight months Biosphere 2's new mission has centered on launching new research, education, and public outreach programs in earth and environmental sciences. In fact, on September 16, an aquatic closed ecological system experiment produced by two of the original biosphereans (who later formed the Tucson-based Paragon Space Development Corp.) was launched on the Space Shuttle Atlantis for transfer to the Russian Space Station MIR. According to a Columbia statement, one of Harris's main duties will be to build research programs focusing on the impact of carbon dioxide on plant life. Harris currently is assistant director for NSF's Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.He begins his new job on October 14. Forgive Koji Nakanishi if he has to trot out Mark Twain's line about rumors of his passing being greatly exaggerated. Nakanishi, the Centennial Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University, is one of the rare scholars to have an award named in his honor while still alive and productive. The American Chemical Society and the Chemical Society of Japan have teamed up for the annual Nakanishi Prize, which comes with a $3,000 award and a bronze medal. The two groups will take turns designating winners. The Japanese society was scheduled to name the first recipient last week and is to present the prize on December 7 in Tokyo. The American organization has named Frank Westheimer, the Morris Loeb Professor, Emeritus, of chemistry at Harvard University, as its first recipient. Westheimer will receive his prize in San Francisco at ACS's spring meeting next April. The award recognizes "significant work that extends chemical and spectroscopic methods to the study of important biological phenomena." There is no nationality requirement. Nakanishi is an acclaimed chemist (Notebook, The Scientist, June 10, 1996, page 30) who has traveled the globe to isolate biological compounds, and has suggested several commercial or therapeutic uses for them. "Most prizes are named for people whose great careers are in the past and who are departed. Koji is very much alive and very active in his research," Westheimer observes. "I am enormously pleased to receive an award named for [him] because I admire him personally, and I admire his work." The death of Edgar Allan Poe in 1849 seemed to be a textbook example of how self-destructive writers meet their ends. The 39-year-old author, a heavy drinker and a user of opiates, was found unconscious outside a Baltimore bar and was taken to a local hospital, where he died a few days later, apparently of complications from alcoholism. But challenging this long-standing assumption is a new analysis (R.M. Benitez, Maryland Medical Journal, 45:765-9, 1996) suggesting that the cause of Poe's death instead was rabies. R. Michael Benitez, a cardiologist and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland Medical System, reviewed Poe's death as part of a weekly conference in which physicians examine complex cases without diagnoses. Benitez did not know the patient in question was Poe, though some of the clues-a 39-year-old writer, with a history of alcohol abuse, stopping in Baltimore while traveling from Richmond, Va., to Philadelphia-tipped him off. "One of the first things that struck me as very odd about it was the lack of X-rays and laboratory values and CT scans and MRI scans," he tells The Scientist. Using the medical records kept by the doctor who cared for Poe during his last days, Benitez concluded that the writer died of rabies. Because there was no autopsy, the diagnosis cannot be confirmed, and Benitez acknowledges that his theory holds little practical value today. Nonetheless, he comments: "I think it's of public interest. It is certainly of interest in Baltimore, where we would like to think of Edgar Allan Poe in another light rather than him being a drunkard. For us it's much more palatable to think of him dying of something else." HELPING HAND: Hon Fong Louie Mark looks for "catalysts." When Hon Fong Louie Mark took a nine-year leave of absence from her cytogeneticist career in 1977, a fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) helped her reenter the field. Today, she is director of cytogenetics at Rhode Island Hospital and an assistant professor of pathology at Brown University in Providence. She also chairs the faculty committee on the status of women and is a member of the Rhode Island Commission on Women. According to Mark, an outspoken advocate of the AAUW program, the criteria for fellowship eligibility include a record of academic excellence and a "commitment to enhancing women's opportunities." She says: "There's not enough money to help everyone, so you want to help those who can act as catalysts-once they become successful, they can help other women." Only about 5 percent of those who apply to the program receive fellowships. The awards, which include community action grants, teaching fellowships, and international study fellowships, support education, research, and career-development opportunities for women at the master's, doctoral, and postgraduate levels. For example, the 43 1996-97 AAUW Educational Foundation International Fellowships will be awarded at a stipend level of $15,160. In 1996-97, more than $2.6 million in fellowships and grants was awarded to 274 women. The U.S. Global Change Research Information Office, which acts as an information clearinghouse on behalf of several federal agencies, recently announced two new publications. The first, The Program Guide to Federally Funded Environment and Natural Resources R&D, provides descriptions on the types of research supported by federal agencies in these areas; potential funding opportunities from these agencies; and how these agencies chose recipients of these funds. To obtain the guide, point your Web browser to http://www.gcrio.org/USGCRP/CENR/proguide96/toc.html. The second document, Our Changing Planet FY 1997, is a report to Congress describing the goals, structure, budget, and contributions of participating federal agencies to the U.S. Global Change Research Program. This is available at http://www.gcrio.org/ocp97/toc.html For more information, contact U.S. Global Change Research Information Office User Services, 2250 Pierce Rd., University Center, Mich. 48710; (517) 797-2730. Fax: (517) 797-2622. E-mail: help@gcrio.org.

Notebook

The Scientist Staff

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