Friday, 6 November 1998 Washington, DC
1. ELECTION: NUMBER OF PHYSICISTS IN CONGRESS IS DOUBLED.
This was not what the American
Physical Society had in mind when
it backed the Frist-Rockefeller
science doubling bill (WN 9 Oct
98), but it is clearly very good
news. Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), an
APS Fellow and a powerful voice for
science
(WN 25 Sep 98),
won reelection by a huge margin as
expected. He will be joined, on
the other side of the aisle, by
Rush Holt, who scored a stunning
upset over incumbent Mike Pappas
(R-NJ). Pappas was clearly out of
tune with the mood of the voters in
his unyielding opposition to gun
control and abortions, but he was
also hurt in the final weeks by an
understated Holt TV ad that showed
Pappas on the House floor singing
"Twinkle, twinkle, Kenneth Starr..." No stranger to
Washington, Rush Holt was an APS
Congressional Fellow in 1984. For
the past six years, he has served
as the assistant director of the
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
2. QUARTERBACK CONTROVERSY: CAN GINGRICH HOLD ON TO THE JOB?
In Washington it's expectation
that matters, and the Republicans
expected to pick up seats in both
the House and Senate. Result? The
Senate was a wash and they lost
five seats in the House. The blame
is falling on House Speaker Newt
Gingrich. Bob Livingston (R-LA),
chair of the Appropriations
Committee is ready to call signals
himself, and is calling for Gingrich to step aside. If
Gingrich refuses to go sit on the
bench, it's remotely possible for a
Democrat to be elected Speaker.
Just last year, Livingston was
considering retirement -- Gingrich
talked him out of it.
3. RESEARCH: STEM-CELL DISCOVERY REIGNITES POLITICAL CONTROVERSY.
The announcement yesterday that
undifferentiated embryonic cells
have been isolated and cultivated
has enormous implications for
medical science. But four years
ago, anti-abortionists pushed a
bill through Congress banning the
use of federal funds for human
embryo research. This has NIH
lawyers trying to figure out if the
ban applies to laboratory-reared
embryonic cells, grown with private
funds. Anti-abortion activists
have made it clear that they regard
cultivated embryonic cells as human
life. To have no scientists
involved in the stem cell research
who are detached from its
commercial possibilities is an
uncomfortable prospect.
4. APPLICATIONS INVITED FOR MASS MEDIA SUMMER FELLOWSHIPS.
Have you noticed that people have
some pretty weird ideas about
science? Well, maybe you can do
something about it. If you're a
physics graduate student, or even
an outstanding undergraduate, with
talent for communicating science
and an interest in learning how the
media works, we've got a deal for
you. In affiliation with the AAAS,
the APS will again sponsor two ten-
week summer fellowships in mass
media organizations. The deadline
for applications is 15 Jan 99. For
full details check the APS home
page
<http://www.aps.org>,
and click on "Public Affairs."
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