WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 15 December 1989 Washington, DC

1. ANDREI SAKHAROV DIED LAST NIGHT IN HIS SLEEP AT 68.
The most respected physicist in the world, Sakharov was a symbol of moral integrity during the cold war. His health had been damaged by the repeated hunger strikes that were his only means of resistance during the long exile in Gorky, but he survived to represent the Soviet Academy of Sciences in the Congress of People's Deputies. Although Gorbachev was responsible for his liberation from exile, Sakharov never hesitated to oppose Gorbachev for moving too slowly on perestroika. He lived to see a world transformed.

2 . LESS IS WORSE WHEN IT COMES TO 60 HERTZ FIELDS!
Two recently released studies found deleterious effects of power line fields to be greatest at the lowest field strengths studied. At the Midwest Research Institute, an experimental psychologist reported that reaction times of persons exposed to 60 Hz electromagnetic fields for three hours were as much as 10% slower than when the fields were left off. Remarkably, however, motor responses were slowest at the weakest fields used, and no effect was found at the highest fields. And at Johns Hopkins, epidemiologists found abnormally high rates of cancer among phone cable splicers who are exposed to fields not much greater than those found in most homes, while studies of workers exposed to much higher fields had found no increased incidence. While preliminary, these latest results suggest a radically different strategy for dealing with the 60 Hz hazard; intentionally saturating the environment with high fields could protect workers from any stray weak fields.

3. ANOTHER "COLD FUSION SIGHTING" IS BEING HAILED AS VERIFICATION
by Pons. Scientists at Oak Ridge reported a slight heat excess in heavy water electrolysis, correlated with neutrons counts above background. But there are far too few neutrons to explain the heat by fusion. Two other groups at Oak Ridge found no anomalies.

4. JOHN W. LYONS HAS BEEN NOMINATED TO HEAD NIST
(the National Institute of Standards and Technology). Lyons, whose PhD is in Physical Chemistry from Washington University, is currently the Director of the National Engineering Laboratory at NIST.

5. CORETECH RECOMMENDS "PRIORITIES FOR A DOUBLED NSF BUDGET."
The Council on Research and Technology (CORETECH), a coalition of corporations and universities established in 1987 to push for R&D policies that encourage US competitiveness, issued a statement endorsing a doubling of the NSF budget in current dollars. The statement calls for tripled education programs and a fully funded university research facilities modernization program within the doubled budget. Support for individual investigators is described as the appropriate core effort of NSF, while funding for centers should be held at the current level. The statement is curiously silent on the question of a timetable. The budget must double in 17 years just to keep up with the current rate of inflation.



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.