An Inspiring Message

VOLUME 7, No:17 The Scientist September 6, 1993 Notebook(p.4) An Inspiring Message McBrontosaurus Pumping Up The Volume Interesting Alliance On-The-Job Learning Instructive Award New Kids On The Block . An Inspiring Message Faculty in Yale University's computer science department were greeted with a message from a familiar name on their E-mail early last month. Computer science professor David Gelernter, the victim of mail-bomb attack on June 24 (C. O'Kane, The Scientist, Aug. 23, 1993, page 1), was back at the keyboard. His cheery message--Gelernter jokingly referred to himself as "the department's very own official terrorist bomb victim"--was interspersed with information indicating the seriousness of the wounds he suffered. He wrote that he will need surgery to recover some degree of functionality in his right hand and hearing in his right ear. In addition he said, "I don't have much vision in my right eye at the moment, but that may improve." Nonetheless, Gelernter vowed to come back, on a limited basis, this fall. Summing up his perspective on the ordeal, Galernter wrote: "I am the luckiest man alive (emphasis on alive). Surviving the explosion was evidently a pretty neat trick on my part, and I could have been hurt much worse. Whenever I get to feeling a bit morose and missing my old right hand, I wind up thinking instead how privileged I am to be an academic in computer science; in the final analysis, one decent typing hand and an intact head is all you really need, if you wish to add the family and friends with which I am blessed." McBrontosaurus Despite the fact that the majority of dinosaurs are believed to have been herbivores, for which a Big Mac would be considerably less appetizing than a yummy stand of palm trees, Ronald McDonald Children's Charities has provided funding for what is being billed as the most ambitious excavation of dinosaur fossils ever undertaken in the Sahara Desert. The four-month expedition, begun last month, is being conducted by paleontologist Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago. The expedition is taking place in Africa, Sereno says, because it is the "least-explored continent for the story of dinosaur evolution." While Africa was drifting free of other continents 100 million years ago, dinosaurs and land plants evolved into species unique to that continent, paleontologists say. Sereno returned from a preliminary trip to the Sahara in 1990 with a six-foot-long femur bone from a brontosaurus-like dinosaur that was at least 50 feet from head to tail. A film crew and a still photographer will chronicle the expedition; the resulting documentary is scheduled to air as the season premiere of Public Broadcasting System's "New Explorers" series in the fall of 1994. Pumping Up The Volume While many participants in the animal rights debate are trying to raise the level of dialogue, at least one group's literature indicates that inflammatory rhetoric is not the exclusive domain of animal rights extremists. In announcing its "Alliance for Action" conference, to be held September 19 in Portland, Ore., the Portland-based pro-animal research group National Animal Interest Alliance (NAIA) invites potential participants to "hear the case histories from the heroes who have waged solitary battles for survival and justice against this hate movement [animal rightists]. Find out strategies that have worked to combat extremism. Come join us in support of human rights." In addition to animal researchers scheduled to speak at the conference, guest speakers include a "legislative liaison" giving "a sportsman's and trapper's perspective," an official of the Fisherman's Coalition, and a retail furrier. For information on the one-day conference, contact NAIA, P.O. Box 66579, Portland, Ore. 97290-6579; (503) 761-8962. Interesting Alliance The National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists (NCLS), an organization sponsored jointly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Bar Association, is calling for proposals for original papers to be presented at an invitational conference on "Legal, Ethical, and Technological Aspects of Computer and Network Uses and Abuse" to be held in mid-December 1993. Discussions will deal with such issues as access to information, privacy, security, and equity; and the role of computer users, academic institutions, industry, professional societies, government, and the law in defining and maintaining the legal and ethical standards for the use of computer networks. The deadline for submission of proposals is September 15. For information, contact Deborah Runkle, Directorate for Science and Policy Programs, AAAS, 1333 H St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005; (202) 326-6660. Fax: (202) 289- 4950. E-mail: values@gwuvm.gwu.edu. On-The-Job Learning The State University of New York at Stony Brook's Center for Biotechnology has established two new science student internship programs, one providing two-year research internships for undergraduates in biotechnology companies, and the other offering single-semester internships for graduate students in law offices. The undergraduate internships began this summer, with five students being placed in three Long Island, N.Y., biotechs. The law internship begins this fall, with one student each semester interning in the office of an intellectual property law firm in Garden City, N.Y. Interested companies can contact Glenn Prestwich at (516) 632-8521. Instructive Award The California Institute of Technology has established the $3,000 Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching, to be awarded annually to a faculty member "who demonstrates unusual ability, creativity, and innovation in teaching." The prize will be augmented by an immediate raise in the recipient's salary. Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, taught at Caltech from 1950 until his death in 1988. New Kids On The Block Veterinary researchers at the University of Georgia have announced the birth of the first test-tube goats in the United States, twin billy goats named Willy and Nilly. The pair represent the culmination of five years of research in reproductive biotechnology at Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicine. While human in vitro fertilization has been performed for the past 15 years, producing the goats presented special challenges, says Benjamin G. Brackett, head of the department of physiology and pharmacology at the vet school: "A major obstacle was to find the conditions that will enable eggs taken from the ovary to mature appropriately prior to fertilization. In these experiments, we carried immature eggs up to the four- to eight- cell stage after in vitro fertilization." According to the researchers, the breakthrough could have major implications for goat breeding and the development of drugs that could be used on animals and humans.

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An Inspiring Message

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