Friday, 13 November 1998 Washington, DC
1. GLOBAL WARMING: SIGNING THE KYOTO ACCORD DRAWS HEAVY FIRE.
As the Administration promised, it has signed
the pact to reduce greenhouse emissions, but
has no plans to submit the treaty to the
Senate for ratification. Last year, by an
overwhelming margin, the Senate passed a
resolution opposing the treaty unless it was
modified. Congressional opponents are now
pressuring President Clinton to submit it to
the Senate immediately when Congress
reconvenes on January 6. Good luck! Leading
the charge is James Sensenbrenner (R-WI),
House Science Committee chair, who heads the
bipartisan delegation to the UN Conference on
Climate Change in Buenos Aires. However, a
rocket fired off by several of the delegates
was signed only by Republican members. It is
unlikely that the Kyoto treaty will be acted
on before 2000.
2. ISS: IN SPACE AS ON EARTH, IT'S LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
This has not been an easy partnership. Just
days before launch of the first ISS
component, Russia is still trying to cling to
the tattered symbol of its space prowess.
They now want to build the ISS next door to
Mir. Good luck! This is not considered a
safe neighborhood. NASA is expected to
respond to the proposal today.
3. MOXIBUSTION? JAMA GOES HEAD FIRST INTO ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE.
Americans visited AM practitioners more
frequently than primary care physicians in
1997 and paid $21B for the privilege. There
is, however, a dearth of scientific evidence
of either safety or efficacy of AM therapies,
prompting the Journal of the American Medical
Association to put out a special issue on AM
research. At a press briefing on five
articles selected from that issue, the JAMA
editor began by observing that the gold
standard for medical research is the
randomized, double-blind study. WN's
favorite was "Moxibustion for Correction of
Breech Presentation." Moxibustion is an
ancient Chinese practice in which acupuncture
points are stimulated by heat rather than
needles. Not just any heat -- it must be
from burning the herb Artemesia vulgaris --
and not just any acupuncture point -- it's
the one beside the outer corner of the
woman's fifth toenail. OK, so the theory
needs a little work. The study, done in
China, concluded that more fetuses turned
head first among the treated women. But was
the study blind? Sort of. The women were
told which group they were in -- besides, its
pretty easy to tell if you're getting a
Chinese hot foot. The doctors were also told
which women were treated, but the fetuses, by
all accounts, were in the dark.
4. APPLICANTS ARE SOUGHT FOR APS CONGRESSIONAL FELLOWSHIPS.
As the evidence mounts that Congress still
needs a little help on technical matters, APS
is again looking for qualified physicists to
spend a year in a Congressional office.
Applications must be complete by January 15,
1999. For full details check the APS home
page
<http://www.aps.org>,
and click on "Public Affairs."
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