October 25, 1997
News of the Week:
Population Diversity Crowds the Ark
The first look at the number of populations contained within the world's species adds a new dimension to biodiversity and what's at risk when its lost. Sources:
Jennifer B. Hughes
Robert M. May
Sean Nee
Stuart Pimm
Walter Reid
Department of Biological Sciences
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-5020
Department of Zoology
Oxford University
South Parks Road
Oxford, OX1 3PS
United Kingdom
Department of Zoology
Oxford University
South Parks Road
Oxford, OX1 3PS
United Kingdom
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
World Resources Institute
1709 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006
High cholesterol may benefit elderly
Among persons in their late 80s and 90s, elevated blood cholesterol can translate into lengthened lifespan. Sources:
Daniel Levy
Jos W.M. van der Meer
Annelies W.E. Weverling-Rijnsburger
Kids with schizophrenia yield brain clues Brain scans of teenagers who developed schizophrenia during childhood indicated that a progressive disturbance of neural development underlies this severe mental disorder.
A prototype virtual-reality system allows a researcher to experiment with and modify neural-network software visualized as three-dimensional shapes. Sources:
Thomas P. Caudell
Larry J. Dalton
Antarctic ozone hole expands in altitude This month, ozone destruction over the Antarctic reached new heights. Sources:
David Hofmann
Paul Newman
Enzyme mechanics win chemistry Nobel Three researchers share the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on enzymes. Sources:
Paul D. Boyer
Richard L. Cross
Jens C. Skou
John E. Walker
High-dose rotavirus vaccine protects kids A vaccine against rotavirus, a sometimes fatal diarrheal disease, has proved effective in a test of more than 2,000 children in Venezuela. Sources:
John R. Gentsch
Albert Z. Kapikian
Margaret B. Rennels
Laser cooling yields Nobel in physics Three researchers were awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing methods of using laser light to chill gases to within a few millionths of a degree of absolute zero. References:
Sources:
Daniel Kleppner
Framingham Heart Study
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
5 Thurber Street
Framingham, MA 01702
Division of General Internal Medicine
Department of Medicine
University Hospital Nijmegen
6500 HB Nijmegen
Netherlands
Leiden University Medical Centre
Department of General Internal Medicine
P.O. Box 9600
C1-R4S
2300 RC Leiden
Netherlands
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
E-mail: tpc@eece.unm.edu
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800, MS 0535
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0535
E-mail: ljdalto@sandia.gov
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory
Mailstop Code R/E/CG
325 Broadway
Boulder, CO 80303
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Mailstop Code 916
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of California
639A MBI Building
Mailstop Code 157005
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
State University of New York
Health Science Center
750 East Adams Street
Syracuse, NY 13210
Aarhus University
Nordre Ringgade
DK-8000 Aarhus
Denmark
Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Hills Road
Cambridge, CB2 2QH
United Kingdom
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Department of Health and Human Services
Atlanta, GA 30333
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institutes of Health
31 Center Drive
Mailstop Code 2520
Building 31, Room 7AO3
Bethesda, MD 20892-2520
Division of Infectious Diseases
Department of Pediatrics
University of Maryland School of Medicine
22 South Green Street, NSW70
Baltimore, MD 21201
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 26-237
Cambridge, MA 02139
Research Notes:
Astronomy
Martian pebbles tell watery tale Pebbles embedded in Martian rocks provide further evidence that water once flowed on the Red Planet. Sources:
Matthew P. Golombek
Ronald Greeley
Henry J. Moore
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109
Department of Geology
Arizona State University
P.O. Box 871404
Tempe, AZ 85287-1404
U.S. Geological Survey
345 Middlefield Road
Mailstop Code 870
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Comet Hale-Bopp: Alive and spewing Spectra from Comet Hale-Bopp, as it retreats from the sun, reveal the comet most likely formed in the chilly, outer reaches of the solar system. Sources:
David C. Jewitt
Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii
2680 Woodlawn Drive
Honolulu, HI 96822
Behavior
Minor problem for antitobacco laws Laws banning tobacco sales to minors fail to reduce teenagers' access to cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, according to research in six Massachusetts communities. Sources:
Nancy A. Rigotti
General Internal Medicine Unit
Massachusetts General Hospital
50 Staniford Street, 9th Floor
Boston, MA 02114
Losing patience with patients Patients perceived as particularly frustrating by physicians tend to have many vague physical symptoms, feelings of helplessness regarding their problems, and a history of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sources:
Edward A. Walker
Department of Psychiatry
University of Washington
P.O. Box 356560
Seattle, WA 98195
Chemistry
Understanding how proteins fold A recent study looks at the role hydrogen bonding plays in protein folding, and another provides a way to design proteins with a chosen shape. Sources:
Bassil I. Dahiyat
Stephen L. Mayo
Jeffrey S. Moore
Peter G. Wolynes
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
California Institute of Technology
Mailstop Code 147-75
Pasadena, CA 91125
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Division of Biology
California Institute of Technology
Mailstop Code 147-75
Pasadena, CA 91125
Departments of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
School of Chemical Sciences
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
Fuel chemistry advance wins prize The 1997 Charles Draper Prize, engineering's highest honor, was awarded to Vladimir Haensel for his 1947 invention of platinum catalysts used in making high-octane gasoline. Sources:
National Academy of Engineering
Charles Stark Draper Prize
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
National Academy of Sciences 069
Washington, DC 20418
Articles:
New programs aim to cut the juice drawn by leaky appliances Increasingly, U.S. electronic appliances draw power even when they're ostensibly off. Sources:
Energy Star Program
Rob Frizzell
Horace Herring
Felix Kamer
Laurence F. Kinney
Alan Meier
Olof Molinder
Rolf Schmitz
Stephan Sylvan
Jennifer Thorne
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M. St., SW
Washington, DC 20460
Website: http://www.epa.gov/energystar
Power Integrations
477 North Matilda Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
EERU
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
England
ASPRO Technology AG
Lenzhard
5702 Niederlenz
Switzerland
Synertech Systems Corp.
472 South Salina Street, Suite 110
Syracuse, NY 13202-2401
Energy Analysis Program
Energy and Environment Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Room 90-2000
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
OMvärden Konsult AB
Bardabacken 1
167 71 Bromma
Sweden
Website: http://www.omva.se
Bundesamt fur Energiewirtschaft BEW
Sektion Rationelle Energienutzung
Belpstrasse 36
CH-3003 Bern
Switzerland
Energy Star Home Electronics
Environmental Protection Agency
Mail Code 6202 J
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20460
E-mail: sylvan.stephan@epamail.epa.gov
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy
1001 Connecticut Avenue
Washington, DC 20036
Website: http://www.aceee.org/press/leakelec.htm
Spying on El Nino The struggle to predict the Pacific prankster Forecasters are developing models to explore the Pacific warming. Sources:
Gerald D. Bell
Mark Crane
Mojib Latif
Ants Leetma
Robert E. Livezey
Antonio D. Moura
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
5200 Auth Road
605 World Weather Building
Camp Springs, MD 20746-4304
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Route 9W
Palisades, NY 10969
Max-Planck-Institut fur Meteorologie
Bundesstrasse 55
D-20146 Hamburg
Germany
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
5200 Auth Road
807 World Weather Building
Camp Springs, MD 20746-4304
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
5200 Auth Road
604 World Weather Building
Camp Springs, MD 20746-4304
International Research Institute for Climate Prediction
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Columbia University
Palisades, NY 10964-8000
Table of Contents - 10/25/97