Notebook

Stamp Of Approval Starring Roles For Women Scientists Sold! To The Fittest Bidder Gone Fishin' Cosmic Collaboration Mice At Risk Although it isn't receiving as much publicity as the Elvis Presley stamp to be issued January 1, a stamp honoring a noted African American scientist will be available next month. Percy Lavon Julian, who pioneered the chemical synthesis of drugs, is to be featured on a 29-cent stamp as part of the U.S. Postal Service's commemorative Black Heritage Series. Julian, who lived from 1899 to 1975, was one of the first African Americans to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry and to open his own chemical manufacturing operation. He received a master's degree from Harvard University in 1923 and a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1931. He taught at Howard University and several other institutions before founding Julian Laboratories Inc. in 1953. In 1935, Julian synthesized physostigmine, a drug used to treat glaucoma; he later developed steroids and synthesized progesterone, testosterone, and cortisone from the soybean protein. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The stamps will go on sale January 30. Women researchers are the stars of two newly released videos. "On the Surface," a documentary by Randy Olson, an assistant professor of zoology at the University of New Hampshire, is about Alvin, the deep-sea submersible at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. It features three marine biologists: Ruth Turner, who was the first woman to make a dive in Alvin; Colleen Cavanaugh, an assistant professor of biology at Harvard University; and Cindy Van Dover, the only woman ever to pilot Alvin. "On the Surface" is available through Prairie Starfish Productions; (800) 395-9397. Meanwhile, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific has produced a set of 26 slides with an accompanying 36-page booklet on the role women have played, and are still playing, in astronomy. For information, contact ASP, Women's Slide Orders, 390 Ashton Ave., San Francisco, Calif. 94112. Phone: (415) 337-1100; Fax: (415) 337-5205. This week, Sotheby's in London is auctioning off what it calls the most comprehensive collection of rare books and manuscripts on the theory of evolution in the 19th century, as well as portraits of British naturalist Charles Darwin and his colleagues. The auction, scheduled for Friday at 11 A.M., will attempt to sell more than 1,000 items amassed over the past 25 years by California scientific book dealer Jeremy Norman. Up for bids is a first-edition copy of Darwin's On the Origin of Species (estimated worth: $18,600 to $23,250) and an albumin print of Darwin at age 59 (estimated worth: $7,750 to $9,300). Among the more unusual animal models being used to study human diseases is the horse-eyed jack fish. Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston are investigating the fish, which migrates each year from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of New England, as a possible key to understanding osteoporosis, a disorder that results in bone loss, mostly in women. The horse- eyed jack fish grows distinct, bony swellings, called hyperostosis, at specific sites around its body. Led by principal investigator Clement B. Sledge, chairman of orthopedic surgery at the hospital, the Boston team hypothesizes that if the mechanism for this bone growth is found, it would be a useful therapeutic technique for the treatment of this disease. Currently, 25 million Americans, of whom 80 percent are women, have osteoporosis. Cosmic Collaboration A device developed at the University of California, Berkeley designed to detect the makeup of cosmic rays--interstellar nuclei stripped of their electrons--is now back in the school's science lab after spending almost a year on board the Russian space station Mir. Called TREK, the instrument was the first United States-built scientific device to fly aboard a Russian space vessel since the two countries signed a civil space agreement in 1987. With TREK back on Earth, UC-Berkeley physics professor P. Buford Price and his team of both American and Russian scientists will decipher the results. The apparatus involves 36 stacks of glass plates, which become etched when the cosmic rays pass through them. The researchers will now use a highly corrosive acid to reveal the tracks so the speed, mass, and atomic number of the particles can be determined. According to current medical dogma, high cholesterol is unhealthy. Fortunately for researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, a genetically engineered mouse they developed cannot help it. Graduate student Sunny H. Yang, pathology professor Robert L. Reddick, and associate pathology professor Nobuyo Maeda have altered the mouse's gene that assists in removing fat from the blood. The result, they say, is that when given a regular diet, the mouse achieves cholesterol levels five times the normal count. The investigators say the coronary arteries of these mice with genetic atherosclerosis narrow significantly a few months after birth, so drugs to prevent heart and blood disease can be safely tested. "This is the second example within two months of an important animal model being developed by collaborating teams at UNC," notes Stuart Bondurant, dean of the UNC-CH School of Medicine, of the mouse, reported in the October 16 issue of Science (258:468-71). "The model announced in August was for cystic fibrosis....We are very proud of their work."

Notebook

The Scientist Staff

Dec 6, 1992

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