Friday, 1 August 97 Washington, DC
FLASH! ERNEST J. MONIZ IS NAMED UNDER SECRETARY OF ENERGY by
President Clinton. Moniz is currently physics chair at MIT.
1. NSF: SENATE EARMARK SEEKS TO MOVE THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE.
The FY 98 NSF budget request includes $25M for an incoherent
scatter radar for studies of ionospheric plasmas. The plan was to
locate the radar near the north magnetic pole in Resolute Bay,
Canada. Canada? Senate Appropriations Committee chair Ted
Stevens (R-AK) inserted an earmark in the appropriations report
language directing NSF to move the location to Alaska --specifically, to the University of Alaska's auroral research
facility, for which Stevens has already earmarked at least $115M
from the DOD budget since 1990(WN 15 Nov 96). Moving the north
magnetic pole may create an international incident, but opening
up the NSF budget to earmarking is more troubling.
2. ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: THE NATION'S TOP HOMEOPATH RESPONDS.
The NIH Office of Alternative Medicine was created by Senate
earmark in 1993. OAM Director Wayne Jonas (WN 2 Aug 96) responds
to critics of the Office in the August issue of Nature: Medicine.
Referring to the homeopathic claim that biological information
can be stored and transmitted by water and wires, he asks, "Even
though this concept is implausible, the potential implications it
holds for understanding basic biological and cellular
communication are enormous. Can we not afford to invest a small
amount in pursuit of this question?" Hmmm, I can think of a
thousand implausible concepts that would hold enormous
implications -- if true. In Germany, a randomized, placebo
controlled, double-blind clinical trial of a standard homeopathic
remedy found "no significant difference in any parameter between
homeopathy and placebo." In five years, it has never occurred to
OAM to support such a study.
3. BROOKHAVEN: WOULD-BE CONTRACTORS WANT REACTOR RESTARTED.
The
Presidents of SUNY Stony Brook and Battelle, the joint (and so
far only) bidders for the contract to run the lab, say the
fast-flux beam reactor is important to American science.
Meanwhile, Peter Bond has been named as the interim director.
4. COLD FUSION: SOMETIMES THE MESSENGER SHOULD BE SHOT.
In a grossly irresponsible report in June (WN 13 Jun 97), ABC'S Good
Morning America science editor Michael Guillen showed a device
"neutralizing radioactivity." According to Guillen, "the
Patterson cell" has mainstream scientific support. To prove his
point, he said a paper on the device had been "well received" at
a recent meeting of the American Nuclear Society. One good turn
deserves another; yesterday, at a meeting cosponsored by the ANS,
a tape of the ABC story was replayed to prove the Patterson cell
has mainstream scientific support.
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