Council of U.S. Academy of Sciences Expresses Concern to Soviet Counterparts over Sakharov Harrassment

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) president Philip Handler has made public a cable to his opposite number in the Soviet Union expressing the "deep concern" of the NAS Council for the welfare of dissenting Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov and warning that, if further measures were taken against Sakharov, "it would be extremely difficult to imagine successful fulfillment of American pledges of binational scientific cooperation . . . ." Handler's message is the strongest public expression to date of NAS concern over treatment of Soviet scientists and other intellectuals (Science, 6 April). The cable, addressed to M. V. Keldysh, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, is given in full below.     

Geophysicists in moscow: signs of easier relations

Science editor Philip H. Abelson attended the 15th general assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics in Moscow on 1 through 14 August. There he served as principal U.S. delegate to the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior. In preparing the following notes for publication, he checked his own impressions extensively against those of American scientists who participated in other sections of the meeting, and against the impressions of those who visited scientific institutions in the Moscow region.     

Ruckelshaus on accountability

In an address to the American Chemlical Society on 13 Septemeber, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus said that "Decisions such as the fate of DDT are not decisions solely within the purview of the scientist to make in his laboratory. Rather they are basic societal decisions about what kind of a life people want and about what risks they are willing to accept to achieve it." He went on to discuss in the following passage his own conception of the accountability of himself and of scientists to the public:     

Corrections and clarifications

In Christopher Anderson's News & Comment article "Rocky road for Federal Research Inc." (22 Oct., p. 496), a comment from National Institutes of Health neuroscientist Michael Rogawski regarding Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) delays did not refer to his own CRADA experiences, which he says were not characterized by inordinate delays. Rogawski was referring to the effect on scientists in general of the delays inherent in what he considers appropriate scientific and administrative review.     

ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Selling Science to the Public

In this essay, Highfield reflects on his personal experiences as science journalist and editor at the British broadsheet the Daily Telegraph. Highfield believes that scientists can learn from journalists' dialogue approach to science communication. Highfield believes that readers are "ignorant but smart," and are sufficiently sceptical not to believe all the hype that they read. What is most important is that a dialogue is created. For example, large-scale experiments performed by the Daily Telegraph together with the BBC allow the public to get a glimpse of the scientific method that is often ignored.     

Once and future farming: Some meditations on the historical and cultural roots of sustainable agriculture in the United States

American agricultural history, literature, and thought reveal historical circumstances that have often been unfavorable to the development of a sustainable agriculture in the United States. Further critical examination of these historical and cultural roots reveals that sustainable agriculture is an evolving concept that can be traced to the tradition of agrarian idealism, scientific and organic agriculture, and the recent history of ecological ideas, beginning with the Dust Bowl and extending to the present.Carl D. Esbjornson received his Ph. D. in English, with an emphasis in American literature and culture, from the University of Iowa. He taught at the University of Iowa, Oklahoma State University, the University of South Dakota, and, for the last four years, as an assistant professor in the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University. He has published articles on Wendell Berry and on recent American poetry. He is now engaged in a more extended interdisciplinary study of sustainable agriculture. He now lives in Minnesota, working as an independent scholar, free-lance writer, and an advocate for sustainable agriculture.     

On reading the federal budget

Within the scientific community there seem to be at least two schools of thought as far as the federal budget is concerned. One holds that more money would be made available for research if only spokesmen for research could gain access to high government officials. The other view is that the research budget of the United States reflects well-considered policy and cannot be changed by friendly persuasion. Rashi Fein, professor of the economics of medicine at Harvard Medical School, believes the latter. He expressed his point of view recently in an address before the American Public Health Association. His remarks were directed to last year's budget but apply equally to the President's budget for fiscal 1975. Excerpts from his talk, "The new national health spending policy-who pays and who gets?" follow.     

Canadian men of science

Even by American standards, the far western universities of British Columbia and Saskatchewan have been outstanding producers of scientists. Next have been the small Maritime Province universities of Acadia and Mount Allison. The larger universities in Ontario and Quebec were much lower in scientific productivity, and the Roman Catholic schools lowest of all. Nearly half of the Canadian scientists have migrated to the United States, and, of those remaining in Canada, nearly half went to Ontario. Of the mathematicians, physicists, and psychologists, considerably more than half emigrated to the United States, whereas of the biologists, geologists, and chemists, considerably more than half remained in Canada. Two-thirds of Canada's future scientists go abroad for graduate training. Teaching remains the dominant profession for the top scientists, with some trend in evidence toward government and industry.     

Bioethics. Financial conflicts get more scrutiny in clinical trials

At a national conference on clinical research last week, the incoming head of the federal government's new Office for Human Research Protections, Greg Koski, surprised his audience by suggesting that some conflicts should be avoided. His support for the idea that scientists should have no financial ties to companies whose products they are testing hints at an upcoming shift in government rules that govern the relationship between scientists and the pharmaceutical industry. But most of the discussion at the conference revolved around questions of how to "manage" conflicts rather than do away with them.     

Corrections and clarifications

The Random Samples item "The mosquito and the marigold" (12 May, p. 809) incorrectly suggested that a team of scientists in India first characterized phototoxins in marigolds that kill mosquito larvae. In fact, they were originally discovered in the early 1980s in Canada by investigators at the University of British Columbia [see J. T. Arnason, B. J. R. PhilogAne, P. Morand, K. Imrie, B. Hasspieler, A. E. R. Downe, "Naturally occurring and synthetic thiophenes as insecticides," American Chemical Society Symposium Series 387, 164 (1989)].     

Cell biology. Sowing the protein seeds of prion propagation

Ever since Prusiner first proposed his radical "protein-only" hypothesis to explain how certain infectious proteins (prions) are transmitted from one mammal to another in the absence of DNA or RNA, scientists have been trying to prove him right (or wrong). The study of mammalian prions, such as those causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, scrapie in sheep and mad cow disease in cattle, has been slow to yield answers. However, as Tuite discusses in his Perspective, the Sup35p and Ure2p proteins of yeast that exist in both normal and infectious forms are providing evidence that the "protein-only" hypothesis may be right (Sparrer et al.).     

ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Taking Responsibility

Joseph Rotblat was born in Warsaw in 1908. He trained in nuclear physics and later specialized in radiation biology. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms." In this essay, he reflects on his experiences and recounts how he has applied his ethical principles to his work as a scientist and educator in Poland, the United Kingdom, and the world. He urges other scientists to apply ethical considerations for the survival of humankind above all others.     

Prediction and theory evaluation: the case of light bending

Is a theory that makes successful predictions of new facts better than one that does not? Does a fact provide better evidence for a theory if it was not known before being deduced from the theory? These questions can be answered by analyzing historical cases. Einstein's successful prediction of gravitational light bending from his general theory of relativity has been presented as an important example of how "real" science works (in contrast to alleged pseudosciences like psychoanalysis). But, while this success gained favorable publicity for the theory, most scientists did not give it any more weight than the deduction of the advance of Mercury's perihelion (a phenomenon known for several decades). The fact that scientists often use the word "prediction" to describe the deduction of such previously known facts suggests that novelty may be of little importance in evaluating theories. It may even detract from the evidential value of a fact, until it is clear that competing theories cannot account for the new fact.     

Corrections and clarifications

In the news briefing "The world's most prolific scientists" (17 Jan., p. 283), Arnold L. Rheingold, a crystallographer at the University of Delaware, was inadvertently left off the list of the top 20 most prolific scientists. The Institute for Scientific Information has corrected its list and states that Rheingold published 391 articles and other scientific communications between 1981 and the end of 1990. He should have ranked 13th on the list.     

竺可桢的农业科学观及其实践

受晚清重农政策的影响,竺可桢赴美留学的初衷是学习农业,但由于中美农业差异巨大,他毕业后改选与农业相近的气象学为研究方向。回国以后,他又致力于气象学在中国的本土化,在实际运用中涉及大量气象学与农业的学科交叉。新中国成立后,竺可桢主要负责农业相关科学研究,并设立以农业发展为主要任务的地理研究所,其组织领导的综合考察队为农业增产作出大巨大贡献。通过梳理竺可桢在农业科技实践方面的史料,可以看出竺可桢从年轻时对具体农业科学知识的追求,一直持续到老年时作为国家科学机构领导者对农业兴国政策的重视及执行,他对农业科技的认识与实践在整个人生中持续不断地深化,诠释了农业在其科学观中所处的地位与作用。     

The pure-science ideal and democratic culture

These early experiences of pure scientists will have an unmistakable ring of familiarity to anyone familiar with the current situation. Charles Sanders Peirce, with characteristic insight, had stated the fundamental dilemma of the pure scientist operating within a democratic framework. How can one ask the public to provide support, much less facilities, for the intellectual gratification of one select group? A part of the answer, of course, is simply that one cannot. As long as a group is dependent upon public support it must seek some means of contact with the values of the enveloping society, and the moment it does this it departs in some measure from the ideal purity. The schizophrenic attitude described by Dubos therefore became a professional necessity as soon as the new ideal was adopted. Since the time of Gould, scientists have been able to tell each other that the man who based science's claim to support on grounds of immediate practical utility was "no loyal follower and true friend of science" and, at the same time, to trust that the popularizers and technicians would convey a different message to the public. On the whole, they have not been disappointed in their expectation, and there has been little need for them to go beyond the standard formula : Utility is not to be a test of scientific work, but all knowledge will ultimately prove useful. Since the continued existence of scientists in this society depends upon the believability of that vague claim, there is little likelihood hood that the schizophrenia will disappear.     

Public health. Grand Challenges in Global Health

This week an international panel announces a list of 14 Grand Challenges in Global Health, and scientists throughout the world will be invited to submit grant proposals to pursue them with funds provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We describe the characteristics of these challenges and the process by which they were formulated and selected after receiving over 1000 responses to a "call for ideas" from the scientific community.     

“X-ese”的构词及语义问题——兼评“Chinese蔑称”论

该文针对《羊城晚报》上刊载的一篇文章所提出的观点,对英语后缀-ese的来源进行了考证,通过实例对该后缀的构词规律、构成的词,及其意义进行了阐述,指出某些辞书上的提法值得商榷,提出了不同的见解。文章认为,词汇的感情色彩源于语言运用的社会与文化,与语言使用者的心理状况密切相关。     

Chemistry with a thousand faces: new ways to play with clay

Like a species that has moved into open niches, evolved, and diversified, chemistry can no longer be seen as a discrete scientific field. Its methods, concepts, and practitioners are penetrating virtually every nook and cranny of science and technology. That message came through clearly 2 weeks ago in New York City at the Fourth Chemical Congress of North America-a week-long conference organized by the American Chemical Society, the Chemical Institute of Canada, and the Chemical Society of Mexico and attended by some 10,000 scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. In roughly 4200 papers, participants explored such topics as borrowing from nature to improve industrial processes and electronic devices, and controlling the molecular architecture of clays and polymers.