Notebook

TAKING THE CROWN: Counterclockwise from top, Hugh Pelham, Günter Blobel, and James Rothman A trio of scientists separately researching proteins have won the 1996 King Faisal International Prize for Science. The prize, awarded this year for "outstanding achievements" in biology, goes to Gnter Blobel, John D. Rockefeller Pro- fessor at Rockefeller University in New York; James E. Rothman, program chairman in cellular biochemistry and biophysics at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York; and Hugh R. Pelham, head of the division of cell biology at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at London's Medical Research Council. The three are splitting a $200,000 cash prize, and each received a 22-carat gold medallion during the March 10 awards ceremony in Saudi Arabia. The King Faisal selection committee cited Blobel for his "origi- nality and brilliance," said Rothman "has earned the respect of the scientific community," and called Pelham "one of the leading authorities in the study of protein transport." Offered since 1979, the prizes honor King Faisal in Abd Al-Aziz, who ruled Saudi Arabia from 1964 until his death in 1975. King Faisal International Prizes are awarded in sci- ence, medicine, service to Islam, Islamic studies, and Arabic literature. Homer Simpson may be healthier than you think, according to a recent pair of unrelated studies. The rotund animated character who spends much of his leisure time parked in front of the television, downing bottles of Duff beer, surely would appreciate a new report that says both suds and hard liquor are as effective as wine in increasing the serum concentration of high-density lipoprotein, or "good," cho- lesterol (E.B. Rimm et al., British Medical Journal, 312:73- 1-6, 1996), thus lowering the risk of heart disease. "On the basis of our review, we see that there is an equal number of observational epidemiologic studies showing a protective effect for moderate consumption of wine, beer, or liquor," says study author Eric B. Rimm, an assistant professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We conclude that the benefit stems predominantly from the alcohol itself, not from other constituents of the beverage sources." Rimm's study comes on the heels of a report that watching TV uses up 20 percent more energy than lying in bed doing nothing (M. Buchowski, M. Sun, International Journal of Obesity, 3:236-44,1996). In addition, the study found that when it comes to burning calories, an ER rerun is no worse than reading or writing. Of course, the researchers-from Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University, both in Nashville, Tenn.-point out that most of the energy burned while watching TV comes from such activi- ties as walking to the refrigerator-for another beer, may- be?-and that even very light exercise uses more energy than zoning out in front of the tube. "It's a waste of time, especially if you watch a few hours a day," lead researcher Maciej S. Buchowski, an assistant professor of family and preventative medicine at Meharry, tells The Scientist. "It's not something you should do." Sorry, Homer. Philadelphia-area clothing manufacturer Sidney Kimmel has donated $10 million to the city's Thomas Jefferson Universi- ty for cancer research and treatment, and in return the school is renaming its cancer center and research institute the Kimmel Cancer Center of Jefferson Medical College and the Kimmel Cancer Institute. "I spent a long time inves- tigating their work, and I was impressed that they had done some very interesting work successfully in the fields of leukemia and colon cancer," Kimmel, who promises similar announcements in another month or two, tells The Scientist. "I was aware of the fact that they were just coming out with the FHIT gene [involved in the development of many common cancers], and I knew there were more exciting things coming. It was not too difficult a decision for me to make." If the name sounds familiar, there's a reason: After receiving a $5 million gift last year, the San Diego Regional Cancer Center renamed itself the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (Notebook, The Scientist, May 29, 1995, page 30). More recently in the San Diego region, the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation's board of trustees chose to honor the longtime involvement and significant donations of Malin and Roberta Burnham by renaming the 20-year-old facility the Burnham Institute. Malin Burnham, a former 12-year chairman of the board, now chairs a $20 million fund-raising project for the institute, and he and his wife recently donated to the center $5 mil- lion, which was then matched by an anonymous donor. He tells The Scientist that while he did not request the renaming and in fact resisted it for a few years, "La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation" just wasn't cutting it: The institute has been investigating more than just cancer for five or six years now, its efforts extend beyond the San Diego area, and the word foundation is "restrictive" and "static." "Wrapping all of these things together, I think, it's nice to hit two birds with one shot; well, this hits four or five birds," says Burnham, whose day job is chairman of John Burnham and Co. and Burnham Pacific Properties. "It creates something where one and one adds up to more than just two." LABOR OF LOVE: Robert Brent held Jefferson department chair for 30 years The majority of endowed professorships are named to honor those who donate large sums of money to colleges and univer- sities. But the new Robert L. Brent Professorship at Thomas Jefferson University's Jefferson Medical College instead hails the man who spent 30 years as chairman of the Phila- delphia institution's pediatrics department before stepping down last year. The position will be held by Brent's succes- sors, beginning with the new chairman, Alan R. Spitzer. Brent is the Louis and Bess Stein Professor of Pediatrics at Jefferson and head of the laboratory of clinical and envi- ronmental teratology in the department of medical cell biology at the Alfred I. duPont Institute Children's Hospi- tal in Wilmington, Del. He has been with Jefferson since leaving the Army in 1957. "I've loved the institution," he tells The Scientist. "It's been a very, very important part of my life. All [three] of my kids graduated from here." A leader in the field of birth-defect research (R.L. Brent, The Scientist, Dec. 11, 1995, page 11), Brent helped found the Teratology Society and edited Teratology for 17 years. He also was consulted as an expert by the National Insti- tutes of Health in a case of radiation poisoning at the National Cancer Institute (M.E. Watanabe, The Scientist, Feb. 5, 1996, page 1). In addition to the professorship, Jefferson will honor Brent and his wife by unveiling their portraits and placing them in its new Lillian and Robert Brent Auditorium. Preceding the April 8 ceremony will be a scientific symposium at which research papers by Brent's colleagues and former trainees will be presented. The papers and other manuscripts will be published in Reproductive Toxicology as a Festschrift in Brent's honor. Brent contin- ues to maintain a busy lecture and teaching schedule that will take him around the world through the rest of the year. "And this is after you retire," he says with a laugh. "It's just been a very, very happy time for my wife and my kids and myself, and I think it's because I stayed at one insti- tution instead of bouncing around." SURREAL STUDENT: Jacob Lurie won the Westinghouse Competition Perhaps it's fitting that Jacob Lurie's Westinghouse Science Talent Search project dealt with surreal numbers, an exten- sion of the real number system that includes infinite and infinitesimal quantities. In winning the 55th annual compe- tition last month, the 18-year-old Lurie posted some pretty surreal numbers of his own for a high school senior: He beat out 1,868 other high schoolers from all 50 states, outdid 39 other finalists from 12 states, and had to endure interviews with 12 judges before claiming the top prize, a $40,000 college scholarship. Lurie, a student at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., won for bringing original ideas to surreal numbers, with his research clarifying the meaning of their computation. "I looked at, vaguely, the extent to which you can compute them and manipulate them, with computers, say," he comments. Lurie plans to attend Harvard University as a mathematics major in the fall and says that his future professional plans are to "do math." The remaining finalists were ranked and split $165,000 in scholarships. The competition is sponsored by the Westing- house Foundation and Science Service Inc. of Washington, D.C. Previous finalists have gone on to win five Nobel Prizes and two Fields Medals. POWER RANGERS: Duracell judges pose with winning inventions Date: April 1, 1996 here in the world of high school science contests, Ian Hagemann's Portable Visual Field Analyzer performed well enough to earn the senior a $20,000 U.S. savings bond and first place in the 14th annual Duracell/NSTA Scholarship Competition. Hagemann, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, invented the PVFA, a portable, automated mechanism for testing eyesight and detecting blind spots on the retina. "I thought it was a very strong project from a scientific standpoint," Hagemann says in a phone interview from his Great Falls, Va., home. "A lot of the projects that are submitted to this contest are more in the gadget domain, but this one came out of neural ophthalmology. It actually had a scientific basis. . . . I was very comfortable with the kind of science I was doing." He says the device, which uses a microcomputer unit powered by a 9-volt battery regulated to 5 volts, can be used in pharmacies and other places that have self- diagnostic equipment. Sponsored by the Bethel, Conn., bat- tery manufacturer and the National Science Teachers Associa- tion (NSTA), the contest challenges high schoolers to design and build a battery-powered device that is educational, useful, or entertaining. Hagemann adds that it's "definitely possible" he will try to advance his winning entry as a commercial venture. He and five second-place winners re- ceived their prizes and demonstrated their inventions last week at NSTA's 44th annual convention, in St. Louis. Don't expect appearances from Siskel and Ebert at Soliloquess Communications' new, mostly free World Wide Web site, although the page will provide a virtual thumbs up-or down-on science- and engineering-related services on the Internet. The Worcester, Mass., publishing company has developed its Science and Engineering Network News site- accessible at http://www.senn.com/ -rate the quality of other Web pages, FTP and Telnet sites, E-mail lists, Usenet groups, and more. The site is a Web version of Science and Engineering Network News, a newsletter published by Solilo- quess to give scientists and engineers information about the Internet. "We knew from the absolute start that we would have a Web site," states senior editor Michael Duncan. "It would be dumb not to if we were an Internet-based publi- cation." The site's home page pledges to "show you what's where and what's worthwhile." Reviewers and editors "spend an enormous amount of time at the actual site" in order to develop a 0 to 10 rating, according to Duncan. "Our whole function is the editorial process of figuring out what makes sense, what's good, what's not good," he says. Ratings are based on accessibility, connectivity, organization, content, ease of use, and currency. Sites that rate 8.5 or higher receive a "Best of the Web" icon; perfect 10s are awarded "a second little icon that says they're super-wonderful," Duncan says. Soliloquess president Shari Worthington says the general public can use the site to peruse a sample issue of Science and Engineering Network News, access mini-reviews of new online resources, and read editors' picks for top sites across multiple disciplines; SENN subscribers can use a password to find back issues and receive more detailed indices. (The Scientist, Vol:10, #7, p.30 , April 1, 1996) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.) WE WELCOME YOUR OPINION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY, PLEASE WRITE TO US AT EITHER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING ADDRESSES: 71764.2561@compuserve.com or The Scientist, 3600 Market Street, Suite 450, Philadelphia, PA 19104, U.S.A.

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TAKING THE CROWN: Counterclockwise from top, Hugh Pelham, Günter Blobel, and James Rothman