Friday, 4 May 1990 Washington, DC

1. THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY ENTERED A PERIOD OF TRANSITION
over last weekend. After years of discussion, the APS Council voted to move APS headquarters from Manhattan to the Washington, DC, area. The Council decision came during a meeting that also saw agreement on a new constitution. The American Institute of Physics, an umbrella organization that provides publishing and other services for ten member societies, owns the building that houses the APS in New York. AIP has outgrown its building and decided to move three weeks ago. A site near the University of Maryland campus in College Park, MD, is under consideration.

2. THE DREAM OF FIELDS LED TO HIS BANISHMENT FROM DARPA.
Craig Fields, the visionary Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has been transferred to an obscure job in the Pentagon. Free-market purists in the White House, such as Darman and Sununu, were apparently offended by his use of DARPA support as venture capital for development of commercial technologies, including HDTV and gallium arsenide switches. Fields recognized that military systems are more likely to depend on spin-offs from civilian research than the other way around. His views have gained him many supporters in Congress and industry, but when the furor dies down in a few days, Fields will still be banished.

3. DOES THE HELIUM ASSAY OF THE UTAH COLD-FUSION CATHODES SEEM TO BE TAKING A LONG TIME?
By now, dozens of used palladium cathodes from other laboratories have been analyzed without finding any He above background; that includes cathodes from Stanford that were said to have produced substantial excess heat. Eleven months ago, Pons got the first helium assay from Johnson-Matthey (WN 8 Jun 90), but declined to make it public on the grounds that it had not been peer reviewed. In September, Pons agreed to a double- blind round-robin assay conducted by six qualified laboratories. The assays were done six months ago, but have been withheld amid rumors that the double-blind protocol was violated. Would the He assay settle the question? Be serious. Fleischmann is said to feel they were too hasty in labeling the effect "fusion" anyway; the excess heat, he says, must result instead from Pd fission!

4. BROMLEY HAS MOVED INTO THE WEST WING OF THE WHITE HOUSE!
In a town where influence is measured by where you're seated at dinner parties, moving from the Old Executive Office Building to the White House marks a rise in status. Meanwhile, he has named Mary Good, Chair of the National Science Board, to head the search for a new Director of NSF. Erich Bloch leaves at the end of August.

5. "AT THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY," THE NEW BROCHURE
issued by the Coalition for National Science Funding, is a source of valuable information on the role of the NSF and the need for increased funding. If you would like to participate in the drive to strengthen the NSF, call us at the number below for a copy.



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.