Notebook

ON THE BLOCK: An Ig Nobel celebrant won a date with Nobelist Dudley Herschbach. National Institute on Drug Abuse director Alan Leshner took his message to Hollywood October 19. He was invited to address the Depiction Committee of the Entertainment Industries Council, whose goal is to facilitate the industry's involvement in health and social issues. "Through research we will continue to generate information about drug abuse and addiction, and we are hopeful that you will help us in delivering it," he told the group. "As the creative experts, we need your suggestions on the best ways to convey scientifically accurate concepts and messages to the public." Leshner says he emerged from the meeting with "a pocketful of business cards that I didn't have before" and encouraged Hollywood's movers and shakers to "call on us for help and advice." His mission, he notes, was "making sure that the message we get out is a correct one." He is dismayed, he comments, that television and the movies "either glorify drug use or connote it as only a social issue. They focus on the criminality and violence. The fact is that it's a treatable, chronic, relapsing disease of the brain." He adds that he hopes TV's popular "medical-based shows" will feature "episodes or pieces of episodes based on drug addiction and talking about the health aspects." Perhaps taking the idea from the popularity of "The Simpsons" and other animated television shows, the California Institute of Technology's Chemistry Animation Project has completed the first six titles in a series of broadcast-quality educational chemistry videotapes. The videos illustrate three-dimensional, difficult-to-visualize concepts that are central to the basic chemistry curriculum. The first six tapes in the series cover three introductory topics-"Crystals," "Atomic Orbitals," and "VSEPR" (valence-shell electron-pair repulsion theory); two intermediate topics, "Stereochemistry" and "Nucleophilic Substitution"; and an advanced topic, "The Diels-Alder Reaction." Planned for release later this year are tapes on "Hybridization and Resonance," "Periodic Trends," and "Molecular Orbitals." Other titles in production include "Binary Crystals" and "Spectroscopy/Molecular Motions." For information on purchasing the tapes, contact the Caltech Bookstore at Mail Code 1-51, Pasadena, Calif. 91125; (800) 514-BOOK. Fax: (818) 795-3156. Information on each video is available on the World Wide Web at http://bond/caltech.edu. BRAINY: Carla Schatz and fellow neurobiologist H. Robert Horvitz were named Dana Award winners. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), headquartered in Chevy Chase, Md., will be offering its third annual Holiday Lectures on Science series on December 18 and 19. Thomas Cech, an HHMI investigator and Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a 1989 Nobel laureate in chemistry, and winner of a National Medal of Science this year (see story on page 3), will present a series of lectures based on the theme of " Double Life of RNA." For The first time, these lectures will be broadcast live via satellite to students in the United States and Canada as part of the institute's precollege and public science education grants programs. Cech will discuss the current state of knowledge about RNA, including chemical, structural, cell biological, and potential medical aspects. the schedule of lectures is as follows: Monday, December 18, 10:00 a.m. (EST), "Catalysis, chemical and biochemical"; 11:30 a.m., "RNA as an enzyme: discovery, origins of life, and medical possibilities"; Tuesday, December 19, 10:00 a.m., "How to accelerate a reaction 100,000,000 times using only RNA"; 11:30 a.m., "Life at The end of the chromosome: another RNA machine." the lectures will be rebroadcast beginning at 1:00 p.m. (EST), on The same day that they are delivered. Free background materials for these lectures as well as registration materials for the series can be obtained from HHMI, Office of Grants and Special Programs, Precollege and Public Science Education Program, Holiday Lectures on Science, 4000 Jones Bridge Rd., Chevy Chase, Md. 20815-9864. Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), based in Palo Alto Calif., awarded Tom Grundner, president of the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN), its 1995 Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility this month. The award is given annually to a "distinguished computer professional who has, through personal example, demonstrated a deep commitment to the socially responsible use of computing technology." According to a statement released over the Internet, Grundner was an early pioneer in the development of community-based computerized information services. His "St. Silicon Project" at Case Western Reserve University in 1984 provided the first data on the effectiveness of using modem-equipped microcomputers to deliver community-health information. His Cleveland Free-Net Project, developed in 1986, is the U.S.'s first free, open-access, community computer system. Based on the success of the Free-Net, in 1989 Grundner founded NPTN, a nonprofit organization to foster the growth of community computer systems in the U.S. and overseas, and to link them in a common communications and information network. NPTN has more than 60 affiliates online, and the funding to bring an additional 30 systems online in 1995. Some 120 organizing committees are currently at work in 42 U.S. states and 10 overseas countries. NPTN has more than 380,000 users. Grundner was honored at a special reception at "The Good, the Bad, and the Internet: A Conference on Critical Issues in Information Technology," held in conjunction with CPSR's annual meeting in Chicago earlier this month. The award was established in 1987 in memory of Norbert Wiener, who was the originator of the field of cybernetics and "a pioneer in looking at the social and political consequences of computing." In his writings, Wiener pointed out the dangers of nuclear war and the role of scientists in developing more powerful weapons shortly after Hiroshima. Wiener died in 1964. Founded in 1981, CPSR is a nonprofit organization of computer scientists and other professionals concerned with the impact of computer technology on society. For more information about CPSR, call (415) 322-3778; E-mail: cpsr@cpsr.org. Hans R. Herren, a Swiss-born entomologist, has received the 1995 World Food Prize from the World Food Prize Foundation of Des Moines, Iowa. He was given the $200,000 cash prize at a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on October 16. The award recognizes individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of the world's food supply. Herren, a self-described "eco-freak," is the director general of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, Kenya. He led a project that rescued cassava, a root crop best known in the form of tapioca, from an introduced pest. Because cassava is one of Africa's most important food crops, his efforts averted widespread famine. In the early 1970s, the cassava mealybug was inadvertently imported into Africa with a shipment of cassava stem cuttings from South America, the plant's native environment. The mealybug thrived in Africa because it had no natural enemies. By the late 1970s, the insect had destroyed up to 80 percent of the cassava crop in some areas. In the early 1980s, Herren, while working at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria, developed a biological control program to solve the problem. His team's use of the mealybug's natural predator, a wasp found in Paraguay, prevented the large-scale use of chemicals. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #21, pg.1 , October 30, 1995) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.)

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