Notebook

An `Orderly' End For The SSC If You Can't Bomb 'Em, Join 'Em New Digs Sex Education I: Affairs Of The Hart Sex Education II: Where The Buoys Are Spreading The Word Now that the superconducting supercollider has bitten the dust in Texas, United States high-energy physicists, unsure as to how to pursue their ambitious experimental goals at home, are looking to CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland as the most likely place to successfully undertake the work. Supporters of the SSC were temporarily buoyed early last month when House of Representatives Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) denied project opponents representation on the conference committee that would, the supporters thought, decide the mega-project's fate. But when, to no one's surprise, the conference committee produced a bill for approval containing full funding for the SSC, the representatives voted to reject it, 282-143. (Earlier this year, the House voted, 280-150, to cancel the SSC; the Senate then voted, 57-42, to fully fund the project with $640 million, which sent the bill to conference.) Late in October, committee members quietly rewrote the appropriations bill to provide the same funding--$640 million--for an "orderly" termination of the Waxahachie project. 'Em With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. defense industry is intent on turning tanks into peacetime technology; hence, the Defense Industrial Conversion and Technology Conference, to be held this week, November 18 and 19, in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by Defense Week and New Technology Week magazines, the conference will feature seminars, lectures, and panel discussions on defense conversion, and speakers from Congress, the Clinton administration, federal laboratories, and the defense industry. Among the featured speakers are Rep. George Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.); Gordon Adams, associate director for national security and international affairs at the Office of Management and Budget; Kay Adams, director of the Industrial Partnership Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory; and John Deutch, undersecretary of defense for acquisition. For information, contact King Communications Group, 627 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045; (202) 638-4260, Ext. 10. Fax: (202) 662-9719. After 60 years in New York, the American Institute of Physics (AIP) moved into its new headquarters--the newly constructed American Center for Physics--in College Park, Md., early last month. AIP was joined there by three of its member societies--the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine--along with the editorial staffs of its two magazines, Physics Today and Computers in Physics. The institute's publishing branch will remain on Long Island. AIP's new address is One Physics Ellipse, College Park, Md. 20740-3843. Phone: (301) 209- 3090. Fax: (301) 209-0846. The Hart Purdue University researchers are studying the usefulness of contraceptives in controlling deer populations. The scientists will test the effectiveness of two contraceptives--one a steroidal contraceptive commonly used for cattle and the other a vaccine that alters a doe's immune system to prevent conception--on a population of 250 deer (with 50 to 60 does) on 1,500 acres of a Northern Indiana Public Service Co. power station near Wheatfield, Ind. The contraceptives will be administered by a biodegradable bullet, shot into the animals' flanks with an air rifle from about 30 yards. The controlled-release drugs should be effective for about six months. The scientists will be looking to see if the deer population will compensate for the reduction in fertile females by increasing their reproductive rates, whether sex ratios of the deer herds change in response to altered fertility, and other effects. Currently, hunting is the prevalent method of deer-population management. Live trapping and relocation is a poor alternative, say the Indiana investigators, as it is expensive and produces dangerous stress in the animals, causing a high mortality rate. Buoys Are Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts have completed a first round of testing of a prototype system to monitor spawning fish at the coral reefs surrounding Johnston Atoll, where a chemical weapon demilitarization plant is located. The system, called Spawn- O-Meter, has two parts: a floating buoy containing a radio tramsmitter, antenna, and other electronics; and a hydrophone dangling beneath the surface, listening to the fish. The buoy transmits acoustic data to a computer at a base station programmed to listen to sounds associated with spawning. Changes in spawning patterns are often the first signs of water pollution, and spawning data are also vital to fisheries management. Information gathered at the Johnston Atoll indicates that spawning at the coral reefs is proceeding apace, unaffected by the plant. Agricultural researchers and students in Third World countries soon will have exclusive access to a wealth of scientific literature, thanks to the efforts of librarians at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The librarians are nearing completion of a project placing about 370 journals and more than 8,000 books--some 2.5 million pages of text-- onto approximately 250 CD-ROMs for distribution only to developing nations. According to Walter C. Olsen, director of the Core Agriculture Literature Program at Cornell, the major problem the program has had in putting together the collection has been obtaining copyright permission from publishers--both commercial and scientific societies--who fear copyright infringement because of the abundance and easy availability of computers and computer networks, from which illegal copies are easily made. Because of that, as well as a desire to contribute to science in developing nations, many publishers were amenable to contributing their publications if the CDs were available only in the Third World, where the risks of copying are considerably less, Olsen says. Once all the publishers are on board, production agreements are in place that should see the project come to fruition as early as the end of next year, he says. For information on the collection, contact Olsen at the Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853. Phone: (607) 255-8939. Fax: (607) 255-0850. E-mail: wcol@cornell.edu.

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The Scientist Staff

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