<2Graduate employment>2

EMPLOYMENT is a tragedy,
whoever it hits.  It is especially
disturbing when the victims are
young people who have never worked.
When the young unemployed include
graduates with valuable knowledge, it is
even more depressing.
  While no one has any right to walk
straight into a well-paid job for life, it isn't
just the out-of-work graduates that suffer.
Many students can tell of months of frus-
tration and many dozens of letters written
in search of gainful employment. (Many of
those letters go unanswered by the person-
nel departments of large companies who
would be horrified by such discourtesy in
would-be employees.) It is not that today's
graduates have especially high expecta-
tions, they just want work.
  Gone are the days when organisations
automatically recruited new graduates
irrespective of their degree topic on the
basis that three years at university show
that someone has the intelligence and
application needed to hold down a job. But
that does not explain why 12 per cent of
1981's science graduates could not find
work.
  It is difficult to judge the extent of un-
employment   among   graduates.   The
Department of Employment does not
gather such figures, especially under the
new scheme of determining un-
employment statistics. Universities do try
to collect statistics, but students have a
habit of "disappearing" after they have
severed their university ties. There is also a
natural reluctance to own up to being a
"failure", so the students who do vanish
probably include a higher percentage of un-
employed people than do those who re-
spond to the universities' questions. Even a
bald figure for unemployed science gradu-

ates can hide the fact that those in employ-
ment are not using their education. For this
reason we are asking our readers to tell us
about their experiences in the jobs race.
    We want to hear from science graduates
of recent years, especially those who have
had difficulty in finding employment. The
sort of information we would like is: What
sort of degree do you have? What type of
work are you looking for? How many jobs
have you applied for? What was the re-
sponse, if any? How long have you been
looking for work? Add any other informa-
tion that you think may be relevant. Write
to Employment, New Scientist, Common-
wealth House, New Oxford street, London,
WC1A 1NG. We will, of course, treat all
information we receive as confidential. The
aim of this small investigation, which can-
not hope to be truly scientific, is to in-
vestigate the extent of the problem and to
see if there are any obvious patterns.
   The employment of scientists is
important for a number of reasons. There
must be a continuous flow of qualified
people into every organisation that
depends, even to a limited extent, on
science.
  For too long the employment pattern in
Britain and probably other countries has
been distorted by stagnation. The shortage
of opportunities at higher levels within
most organisations has left people stuck in
jobs for too long. That means that no one
has moved up to make room for new-
comers at the bottom. We will all pay for
this stagnation. In the future organisations
will need experienced people who can as-
cend the hierarchy. Where will they find
the middle level if there are no youngsters
around with relevant educational qual-
ifications and some understanding of the
organisation and its needs?              []

<2Strategic stockpiles>2

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES about the
consequences of a shortage of oil (or,
as now, what happens when there is too
much of the stuff) appear almost daily but
we hear too little about another vital
industrial resource.  The economies of
the Western world depend on the "strategic
metals" such as cobalt, chromium,
managanese and platinum. We have to
import almost all of our supplies of these
minerals.
   Every few years, people in industrial
circles murmur about what would happen
if supplies were cut off, for political or com-
mercial reasons. Yet, in Britain, at least,
little surfaces to make the average person
pause for thought.
   The government seems to be doing its
best to keep things that way. In May 1980,
it announced a study on how the country
could safeguard supplies to industry. The
discussion highlighted the idea of a state
stockpile of rare metals. Industry would
draw on this in hard times.  But the
Department of Industry, in whose province
this matter falls, is extraordinarily shy
about discussing the issue. Almost exactly a
year ago, Enid Jones, an assistant secre-
tary in the department, told a select com-
mittee of the House of Lords: "We have
done a big exercise on [how to safeguard

supplies] but ministers have not reached a
decision. One of the problems is that we
have not found a way of doing it cheaply,
and this has caused great anxiety." Yet a
spokesman at the department appeared re-
cently to contradict this statement, saying
the study is not yet finished and officials
have still to report to ministers.
   The time the "study" is taking is
worrying--and some key names in British
industry are becoming restive (This Week,
p 357). The problems faced by Britain's
loudspeaker industry a few years ago, when
political upheavals in Zaire disrupted
cobalt supplies, highlight the crucial nature
of the stratetic metals. The price of cobalt
soared and the industry suddenly had to
pour much time and money into rede-
signing the magnets in loudspeakers, using
less expensive ceramic materials instead of
cobalt.
    A shortfall in supplies of chromium and
manganese, which are used to strengthen
steel and which Britain imports from South
Africa, would knock the bottom out of the
engineering industry. It is no good arguing,
as privately, ministers may be doing, that at
a time of recession these considerations are
unimportant. Now is the best time to look
at how Britain should conduct its industry
when the economy recovers. []


<2THIS WEEK>2
<2Computer net will check on UK visitors>2

GOVERNMEMT officials are plan-
ing to install a network of
computers at dozens of British ports
and airports to monitor the millions of
travellers who enter and leave Britain each
year. The first steps were taken last week
when an experiment to monitor "machine-
readable passports" (MRPs) was launched
at Heathrow airport.
  Ministers have always denied that the
MRP experiment is part of a larger plan.
Last month, the home secretary, William
Whitelaw,  revealed that fully-automated
computer terminals at Heathrow, which
will read the new MRPs, could be linked to
a list of suspects held on a computer. But he
insisted that the Heathrow trial "will be
entirely self-contained at Heathrow and
will not be connected to any
other      computer
system."
  Last year Timothy
Raison, then a minis-
ter of state at the
Home Office, said:
"There     are     no
present plans to link
Heathrow      airport
with the immigration
and        nationality
department     com-
puter, which is now
at Bootle."
  But, according to
Home Office memos
shown both to <1New Scientist>1 and to
<1Computing>1 magazine, "the computer
systems might be linked to form a distrib-
uted network encompassing the whole
country', with the centre of the network
located at the Home Office ADP unit in
Merseyside."
  The ADP (automated data processing)
unit at Bootle is the first phase of a
programme known as the Immigration and

Nationality     Department     Electronic
Computer   system    (INDECS).   Since
August 1980 the unit's computer has
indentified visitors who overstay their
permitted time in Britain by matching
landing and embarkation cards. It uses

information about the arrival of visitors
that is sent on cards from ponts of entry to
the Home Office's immigration and
nationality department at Croydon. The
details are entered, via terminals linked to
phone lines, into the Bootle computer.
  The Bootle computer notifies the
Croydon office if it does not receive notice
of an embarkation card by the time the
visitor's time us up. The visitor is then
deported.
   Phase two of INDECS will involve auto-
mating the process further, The cards will
be replaced by computer terminals at ports,
which will automatically register those
visitors who are given leave to stay in
Britain for a fixed period. The terminals
will be linked to minicomputers, which will
in turn be linked to the mainframe
computers--ICL 296's--in Bootle.  This
second phase of INDECS will be tied in
with the computerisation of the Home
Office's confidential suspects index--a list
of names which officers in the immigration
service carry with them to check against the
names on travellers' passports. The index
contains some 18 000 names.
   The intention, according to Home Office
memos, is to hold these names on micro-
computers so that all travellers carrying
machine-readable passports can be auto-
matically checked against the list by the
terminal, as it reads the passport. When a
"hit" is made the immigration officers
must take certain action, according to a
code letter which appears next to the name
in the index.
   The code"X" for instance means "refuse
entry." Other orders include "refer to
special branch when gone" and "press for
details of journey."
   Names are entered into the suspects
index by the Home Office, MI5, Interpol,
HM Customs and Excise and the Foreign
Office. The Home Office refuses to discuss
how names are chosen, but political activ-
ists are known to appear alongside inter-
national criminals. When the index is
computerised it will be practicable to
increase greatly the number of names on
the index.
   The Home Office has another
intelligence-gathering computer, at the
Harmondsworth headquarters of its illegal
immigration intelligence unit.  It stores
names, addresses and telephone numbers
of people suspected of aiding illegal immi-
gration.  Most of the names in this
computer are of black people.
   The Harmondsworth computer is not
part of the INDECS operation. But, like the
suspects index and INDECS, it will receive
partial exemption from the Data Protec-
tion Bill, now in committee stage in the
House of Lords.
   Lord Avebury, the Liberal peer, intends
to press the government for further details
about the Harmondsworth computer and
the plans to link passport-reading com-
puter terminals into a national network.
   "My fear is that people who are not
suspected of committing an immigration
offence may find themselves on this
machine, which could have startling rami-
fications for them," he said this week.
   The Home Office confirmed this week
that the Bootle computer--a Prime
550-uses a software package called status.
This is a powerful tool for "free text
retrieval" which, according to the 1978
Lindop report on data protection, is ideally
suited to the retrieval of "every occurrence
of particular items of information from a
larger mass, and for discovering the
relationship of one piece of information
with another." Free text retrieval systems
required specially close monitoring, said
Lindop, because of their ability to browse
through a mass of material.             []


<2Europe looks for value--for--money in research>2

JAPANESE, American and other
foreign scientists are being asked by the
European Commission to sit in judgement
on the effectiveness of the EEC's #250
million annual research programme.
   The programme has increase six-fold in
the last 10 years and employs more than
2000 scientists at four establishments as

well as commissioning research outside.
   A new three-year "action plan" to evalu-
ate the value that Europe gets for its money
will bring in more outsiders as well as more
peer group reviews and "hearings" on the
results of important project.
o Shilly-shallying over Super-SARA, page
354                              []
<2Britain isolated over sea--dumping of nuclear waste>2

THE WORLD'S leading dumper of
waste at sea, Britain, may find itself
without its favourite garbage tip after the
London Dumping Convention (LDC)
meets next week.
   The seventh LDC could prove to be a
watershed in the contentious
history of ocean dumping.
Two miniature island repub-
lics in the western Pacific,
Nauru and Kiribati, will arrive
armed with a big stick--a
proposal to ban immediately
the disposal of any radioactive
waste in the world's oceans.
Rumour has it that Spain, off
whose coast Britain dumps
nuclear waste each summer,
may support a ban as well.
Meanwhile, the Scandinavian
countries are bearing an alter-
nate proposal to begin a
moratorium on nuclear dump-
ing no later than 1990.
   Either course would have
profound effects on Britain,
which dumps annually some
80 000 to 90 000 curies of low-
level waste. One curie is equal
to the radioactivity of one
gram of radium.  Low-level
waste is primarily the product
of industrial and medical use
of radioactive substances.
   Ocean dumping of nuclear
wastes was popular among the
nuclear nations from the mid- 1940s until
the 1960s. But now only Britain, Belgium
and Switzerland, continue. Britain dumps
90 per cent of the total and, with a new
dumping ship being fitted out this winter,
plans to increase this.
   Instead of a ban, Britain wants tightly-
controlled     and     carefully-monitored
dumping--essentially the status-quo. It says
a ban is not scientifically justified. White-
hall's biggest potential ally is the United
States, which is sending a large delegation
to fight the ban.
   Although the US no longer dumps, the
government wants to keep its options open.
Last November, the US Navy concluded
that it is safe to dump radioactive pressure-
vessels from 100 old nuclear-powered
submarines into the ocean.  But then
congress intervened by imposing a two year
moratorium on all dumping.
   No part of the squabble is more contro-
versial than its scientific underpinning.
Representing Mauru and Kiribati is Jack-
son Davies, Professor of psychobiology
from the University of California at Santa
Cruz. Davis has earned a reputation as an
outspoken opponent of any kind of nuclear
waste dumping at sea. The two island
republics cast their lot with him after Japan
began eyeing the Western Pacific as a
potential dumping ground.
   In a technical document supporting the
Mauru/Kiribati ban, Davies concludes that
concrete-lined 55-gallon drums dumped
near San Francisco and off the coast of New
YorK are now leaking and that radioactivity
is present in edible fish. The conclusions
are not contested by the US government.
   "It's not science," says Alex Perge of the
Department of Energy's nuclear waste
office, which has been studying the possi-
bility of dumping tonnes of slightly-
contaminated soil left over from the
Manhattan        nuclear     project.     The
department's   radio-ecologist,    Charles
Osterberg, says that radioactive isotopes of
strontium, caesium and iodine now leaking
near US coasts are virtually lost amid the
vast quantities of their stable counterparts
in the ocean waters.
  Radioactivity does concentrate in
sediments near the drums, many of which
have imploded from the pressures 4000
metres down, Osterberg acknowledged.
"But that's the safest place they could
possibly be, in my estimation" he told <1New>1
<1Scientist>1 last week.
  Davies says deepsea fish are attracted to
the drums, then move to shallower waters
and pass on radio-activity through the food
chain.
  The US's Environmental Protection
             Agency employed marine
             scientists during the 1970s to
             study two dumpsites--one
             near the Farallon Islands off
             California, and the other near
             the Hudson Canyon near New
             York State's coast.
               One crucial piece of research
             was performed by William
             Schell, a nuclear chemist now
             at the University of Pittsburgh
             in Pennsylvania. Schell pulled
             up nine rattail fish from the
             Hudson Canyon and found
             high levels of Americium 241,
             a radionuclide not normally
             found in such fish, in the
             muscle and skin of three of
             them. Davis and Greenpeace,
             an environmental group, have
             seized on this evidence. But
             Schell says: "We don't really
             know how food-chain transfer
             works . . . I don't think we have
             enough information to make
             strong   conclusions".  Schell
             added: "I never imagined those
             three fish--would create such a
             controversy".
               Schell sticks by his findings,
but wants more samples.  The EPA,
however, has virtually stopped sampling
from ocean dumpsites--much to Schell's
annoyance.
  Scientists at the EPA, who helped anal-
yse samples of sediment from the Farallon
Islands say the public has over-reacted to
findings of radioactivity there that were 200
times background levels.
      Christopher Joyce, Washington DC  []
<2Italy wants to dump Seveso's dioxin>2

POISIONOUS di-
oxin waste may
be dumped in the
Atlantic if proposals
from the Italian
government     are
accepted by the
London Dumping
Convention    next
week.  The waste
comes from Seveso,
near Milan, where
an accident at a
pesticide plant in
1976 contaminated
a wide area with
dioxin (TCDD).
   On 1 October the
Italians proposed to
the    convention's
scientific commit-
tee that the reactor "pot", which was at
the heart of the explosion, should be
dumped, 700 km off the Spanish coast in
the area used annually by Britain for
dumping nuclear waste.
   But rumour is rife that the reactor pot

                     has already been
                     buried.  But the
                     rumours are denied
                     by    the    plant's
                     owner, Hoffman-
                     LaRoche,    which
                     says that the reactor
                     is     still     being
                     dismantled inside
                     the sealed-off plant.
                     More than 2 tonnes
                     of the waste, con-
                     taminated with 300
                     grams of dioxin,
                     that was scraped
                     from the inside of
                     the pot is still being
                     sought by environ-
                     mentalists     who
                     believe that it, too,
                     may land up in the
sea. The waste was driven from Seveso
last autumn and tracked by Greenpeace
to Marseilles and then Saint Quentin,
north of Paris. There the trail has gone
cold for the moment.
                    []        <2Brian Price>2


<2HMS Sheffield thought Exocet was friendly>2

HMS SHEFFIELD, the first and most
devastating British, naval loss of the
Falklands War, was hit by an Argentinian
Exocet missile because the ship's computer
was programmed to recognise the Exocet as
friendly. Immediately after the sinking, all
computers aboard the rest of the task force
in the south Atlantic were reprogammed to
correct the error.
  Contrary to some past reports, the elec-
tronic equipment aboard the HMS Shef-
field did detect the approaching missile.
And the computer successfully identified it
as an Exocet. But the Royal Navy, which
was geared up to fight the Soviet Union
rather than a country operating Western
weapons, had not reprogrammed the
computer to register Exocet as being
hostile.
   HMS Sheffield,    like most of the Royal
Navy's other modern warships, carried a set
of equipment code-named Abbey Hill.
Equipment of this type, known as elec-
tronic support measures, or ESM, detects
the emissions from all radar in the neigh-
bourhood.
  Antennas around the top of the ship pick
up the radar signals and a computer works
out details such as their frequency, the type
of modulation and the intervals between
pulses. It compares this information with
electronic "library" that is stored in the
computer of all radars that the ship is likely
to encounter.
  As ESM equipment does not send out
any signals of its own, an enemy does not
know that its radar emissions have been
detected. And the ship does not give away
its own position since the
ESM     is    completely
"passive".    After   the
Falklands conflict, the
Ministry of Defence
admitted that ESM was an
extremely important aid
in warning of attacks.
  The problem with HMS
sheffield was that Exocet's
homing radar was not on
the computer's list of
enemy equipment. Most
of the Royal Navy's frig-
ates in the south Atlantic
carried their own Exocets
(Britain is the biggest
customer for the missile),
which they might well
have fired against Argen-
tinian ships in an all-out
naval war. If these missiles

had triggered ESM equipment on all the
British ships, unnecessary confusion would
have resulted defence chiefs believed. But
after the sinking of the Sheffield, they
changed their minds.
  Immediately after the sinking of HMS
Sheffield, the Royal Navy changed its
policy and reprogrammed all Abbey Hill
computers in the task force so that they
would recognise the lethal Exocet missile as
foe rather than friend. During further
Exocet attacks, the ESM equipment oper-
ated correctly--and the RN lost no more
warships to this missile.  Later in the
conflict, the light cruiser HMS Glamorgan
was hit by an Exocet launched from a
trailer on dry land, but the crew steered the
ship so that the missile hit the vessel's stem
and Glamorgan survived. During other
attacks, Abbey Hill provided warning soon
enough for ships to fire rockets full of
chaff--metallic strips that produced false
echoes   on   Exocet's   radar.   Atlantic
Conveyor, a converted merchantman, did
not carry either Abbey Hill or chaff
launchers.
  The Royal Navy has now launched a
competition to select a new type of ESM
equipment for its planned Type 23 frigates.
MEL at Crawley and Racal at New Malden
are amongst the companies competing for
the order.  This new equipment will be
more automated than Abbey Hill, so the
frigates will be able to bring their defences
into action more quickly, without waiting
for human operators to analyse the
danger.                                 []
<2Health services are lining drug companies' pockets>2

AN UNHOLY alliance of multinational
drug firms and national health services
has raised drug prices unnecessarily high in
much of Europe, according to a report to be
debated today (Thursday) by the European
Parliament.
   The report, by the parliament's
economic and monetary committee,
attacks trade barriers, governent price-
fixing and the dominance of a few big
firms.
   It complains that prices vary widely from
country to country. Often health author-

ities intent on promoting their national
drug companies force up prices.  West

Germany, the cradle of the world's phar-
maceutical industry and home to the two
largest firms, has some of Europe's highest
prices. The committee also claims that tight
controls have slowed the introduction of
new drugs.
   The committee wants drug prices to be
harmonised throughout the EEC, an end to

separate registration of drugs by each coun-
try and greater use of unbranded "generic"
drugs.                                  []


<2Greenfield put out to grass>2

BRITAIN'S doctors seem set to turn back the
tide of support for cheap unbranded
drugs--against the recommendation of the
Greenfield report which was published last
week.
   Dr John Ball, a member of the Greenfield
working party and chairman of the General
Medical Services Committee of the British Medi-
cal Association, told <1New Scientist>1 this week that
he no longer backed the plan to substitute
expensive branded products with cheaper
"generic" versions.  His committee meets to
discuss the report next Thursday.
   "We made our recommendations about 18
months ago, in the belief that present arrange-
ments for licensing drugs ensured that only
"generic drugs of the highest quality reach the
market," Ball said. "But recents events have led
to anxieties over the quality of some of these
drugs."
   Last year a Harrogate firm was fined more
than #6000 for importing cheap drugs without a
product licence. And the British firm, Beecham,
found counterfeit substandard forms of anti-
biotics on sale in Lebanon. Three years ago ICI
successfully prevented a wholesaler in East
Anglia from importing and selling a sub-
standard version of the company's lucrative
Beta-blocker, Propranolol.
   The Greenfield report recommends that
prescription forms should contain a box, which
doctors should tick if they want to insist on the
branded drug, rather than an approved substi-
tute. But Ball's committee seems likely to press
instead for a box which doctors should tick if
they <1want>1 a generic drug substituted. There is
little doubt that the effect would be to drastically
reduce the number of generic substitutes
supplied by pharmacists.
   Meanwhile <1New Scientist>1 understands that
ministers have not taken up the offer of the
Greenfield committee to hold further meetings
to consider the issues of generic drugs further. []


<2Space pay nosedives>2

STAFF at the European Space Agency are
heading for a clash with officials from several
member-countries who want to cut their salaries.
Current pay levels are already below those
offered by other space agencies.
  Britain, West Germany and the Netherlands
want to reduce the scientists' pay by 41/2 per cent
over the next three years. The staff say there is no
formal structure for negotiating pay.         []
<2Embryology faces disruption>2

NEW GUIDELINES from the British
Medical Association on the ethics of test-
tube fertilisation could disrupt research into
human embryology.
  According to the magazine, <1Pulse,>1 a
provisional version of the guidelines says that
"spare" living embryos may only be observed
outside the womb for a maximum of 14 days.
The disposal of these "research" embryos should,
as far as possible, be according to the donor's
wishes.
  The guidelines say that embryos may only be
frozen and stored if they are to be used for in
vitro fertilisation later on. The report also rules
that genetic manipulation of sperm, embryos or
their parts is unethical, and that surrogate
motherhood is not acceptable, The BMA this
week refused to comment on the leaks.   []


<2Branching out>2

FRANCE'S atomic energy agency is being
roped in to boost non-nuclear technology.
The Commissariat a\ I'Energie Atomique is to
work with the new French Agency for Energy
Management to develop new energy techniques.
There are also plans for the commissariat to help
out the large but troubled medical electronics
firm Compangnie Ge/ne/rale de Radiologie.  []


<2Political shilly-shallying wrecks nuclear safety research>2

ANGER among scientists at the way
Europe's politicians have mishandled
the #200 million Super-SARA nuclear-

safety project reached new heights this
week. Sir John Adams, a former head of the
CERN high-energy physics project and
  now scientific adviser to the European
Commission, described the prevarications
and indecision as "a disaster." And a team
of "three wise men" who reported to
research ministers this week attacked
"repeated delays", "changes of direction"
and "serious underestimates" in budgeting
which have dogged the project.
  Since its inception Super-SARA has
slipped from being a pioneer project into
the safety of nuclear reactor cores after a
severe accident to an also-ran. The report
from the three wise men concludes: "The
significance of Super-SARA, from a
Community point of view, has already
been severely eroded during the years that
the project has been under discussion and it
is expected that its significance will be yet
further undermined before the completion
of the project."
  The three men are Jean Teillac, head of
France's atomic energy centre, Adolf
Berkerhofer, head of the West German
reactor safety institute and Niels Holm, the
former head of the Riso research centre.
  A major cause of the delays was the deci-
sion to widen the project from an in-
vestigation of the effect of large breaks in
the pressurised water-cooling system
around the reactor core to look at wider
problems of severe damage to the fuel.
  The report stops short of recommending
that the project be abandoned. But it told
research ministers (who were still meeting
as <1New Scientist>1 went to press on Tuesday)
that "it is essential to take an immediate

final decision on the future of the
programme." It said that the "benefit/cost
ratio of Super-SARA is low and that, at the
present time, the risk cannot be discounted
of substantial cost overruns."
  The British government, which wants the
project stopped, will take the judgement of
the three wise men as a vindication of its
position. But scientists in the commission
argue that Britain's opposition since the
start has been a factor in the delays.
  Britain favours buying information
from other investigations of reactor safety,
notably the United States progamme,
run by the Nuclear Regulatory Commis-
sion.
  The final nail in the coffin for super-
SARA probably came last year when minis-
ters failed to act on the advice of an expert
panel headed by Sir John Adams. Adams'
report, one of a long line of studies, expert
groups, advisory committees and internal
and external task forces that have looked at
Super-SARA, declared that the project was
still viable if it got an immediate go-ahead.
  But Sir John is now furious at the
bungling and shilly-shallying of the past
year. As chairman of the Commission's
Joint Research Centre's board of governors
he has told the commissioner for science,
Viscount Davignon, that European
decision-making on science ought to be
reformed to stop a repetition. He pointed to
delays, similar to those experienced by
Super-SARA, that afflicted a decision of
where to site the European Fusion Experi-
ment, JET, which is now under way in
Culham Oxfordshire.                    []


<2The best-made tests on mice and men>2

CHEAP AND quick tests on cell cultures
and bacteria can often provide enough
information on the safety of chemicals for
government regulators to reach decisions

on their potential for doing damage to
human genes. The tests can often be more
effective than more expensive and time-
consuming tests on mice and other
animals.

  So says the National Academy of
Sciences in a report to the Environmental
Protection Agency, published this week.
The NAS's report is the latest attempt to
steer a course throuth the minefield of
potential hazards from the hundreds of new
chemicals that the public is exposed to each
year. It comes at a time when the Reagan
administration is rolling back the controls
established by successive governments in
the 1970s.
  The scientists warn that the lack of data
on humans, the wide variety of potential
genetic effects, coupled with the sheer
number of genes involved (10 000 for each
human sex cell) make it impracticable to
try and assess the impact of chemical
mutagens beyond the most important
mutations in the first six generations.
  The work of the NAS committee is part
of the EPA's on-going GENE-TOX
programme, which is assessing ways of
interpreting the vast body of data on

chemical mutagenesis.
  The committee recommends a two-tier
system of tests for identifying mutagens.
The first tier uses bacteria and two types of
mammalian cell culture to detect

mutations in genes and breaks in chromo-
somes. If these tests are all negative, the
chemical is presumed not to be mutagentic.
If two of the tests are positive, the sub-
stance is presumed to be a mammalian
mutagen.
   If only one is positive the chemical is
tested on the sex chromosomes of fruit flies.
If this shows a lethal mutation it is classified
as a presumed mammalian mutagen. If a
large number of people are likely to come
into contact with the chemical, the
committee recommends testing on mice
and other small mammals.
Throughout the report the committee
acknowledges the need to balance the quick
<1in vitro>1 tests with the more expensive and
time-consuming tests on animals.  The
short-term tests are quite sensitive--they
can detect significant changes with very
  small concentrations to chemicals.  But
they cannot mimic the complex metabo-
lism of a living mammal. Conversely, the
tests with animals are much less sensitive.
And there is no guarantee that either the
metabolic pathways or the ability to repair
genetic damage is comparable in mouse

  and man.  The committee says it is
  --unwilling to assume that negative mouse
data necessarily outweigh the consensus of
a variety of short-term tests."
  Another problem with the mouse-tests is
that very high doses of a chemical must be
administered to predict the effects of low-
dose exposure on larger numbers of human
beings. According to the NAS report, it is
very hard to work out the level at which a
chemical begins to do damage. The report
says that, to be on the safe side, it is better
to assume that there is no "no effect"
level.
  And it backs increased monitoring of
genetic damage in groups of humans, such
  as workers in chemical factories.
          Nancy Heneson, Washington DC

                                  []
<2British TV sets to get Japanese labels>2

A #12 MILLION gamble by Thorn EMI
has paid off. The company has landed
a contract with JVC   of Japan to make
colour TV sets in Britain for JVC. This is

the first time that a Japanese firm has
entrusted the manufacture of high-
technology consumer electronics equipment
to a British firm.
  In the last five years the UK colour TV
industry has all but disappeared as firms
from the Far East have taken over.
Matsushita and Sony built new factories in

Wales, Toshiba took over the Rank factory
in Plymouth, Tatung of Taiwan took over
the Decca factory in Bridgenorth,
Mitsubishi took over the Tandberg factory
in scotland and Sanyo has bought the
Philips factory in Lowestoft.
  But Thorn EMI invested #12 million in
its factories in Enfield and Gosport, to
mass-produce a daring new TV design. The
TX range of Ferguson colour TV sets crams
all the major components on a single, large
printed circuit board.

                                  []
<2Why a chemical firm sprayed Egyptian children with pesticide>2

                           CIBA-GEIGY, the
                        giant chemical
                        company is defend-

                        ing its decision to
                        spray six teenage
                        children working in
                        an Egyptian cotton
                        field     with     a
                        pesticide as part of a
                        "field trial".
  The spraying of the pesticide, Galecron,
took place in 1976, but only came to light
during a recent Swiss TV programme. The
Swiss-based firm, Ciba-Geigy, says that the
spraying of unsuspecting individuals is
"rare" but still happens. It is only done after
tests on animals show that "the product will
be safe under normal conditions," a Ciba
spokesman, Anita Friedland, told <1New>1
<1Scientist.>1
   In countries like Egypt, instructions to
workers to stay out of fields after spraying
and to wear protective clothing are widely
ignored, she said. Often "kids walk into
fields by mistake during spraying." The
tests are designed to "double-check" that
no harm would come to them. She agreed,
though, that any chronic long-term effects
of exposure to Galecron would not be
picked up. Company publicity in Europe
says that children must be kept away from
Galecron.
Ciba-Geigy, which sold #7 million worth
of Galecron spray last year, says it works
with government officials to see that safety
rules are obeyed. But Hans Geissbehler
from its agro-division says: "At a certain
point the responsibility of the company
ends."
  Galecron (the brand name for the formu-
lation, chlordimeform) was widely used as
a pesticide before it was taken off the
market briefly in 1976 after it was found to
increase tumours in mice. Later it was
reintroduced--but only to spray on cotton
crops, where it was especially valuable

because pests are resistant to DDT.
  Ciba denies that Galecron causes cancer
in humans but admits to other ill-effects,
notably bloody urine. Ciba has spent #3
million upgrading safeguards at its factory
to keep its Swiss employees from coming
into contact with the chemical.
  A pressure group, the Berne Declaration,
has shown <1New Scientist>1 confidential
company reports showing that levels of the
chemical in field workers from Latin
America and Egypt regularly exceed the
maximum permitted for the company's
own employees. The fieldworkers report
dizziness, headaches and diarrhoea, it says.
  Last year the International Agency for
Research on Cancer reported that Gale-
cron's toxicity in humans is still under-
tested. A batch of reports on the safety of
Galecron, that were submitted by Ciba-
Geigy to the World Health Organisation in
1978 have never been published.
                             Helen Howard

                                        []


<2Nuclear giants right over reprocessing contract>2

DOUBTS about how Britain will deal
with waste from its nuclear power
stations at the end of the century are
fanning a row between the Central Elec-
tricity Generating Board and British
Nuclear Fuels, the government-owned
waste-disposal firm.
  Traditionally the two organisations have
presented a unified face to the world, but
the mask slipped a little last week at the
Snape Maltings, where the Sizewell inquiry
ends five weeks in session this week.
  At issue is an emerging crisis over the
"back end" of the nuclear fuel cycle. By the
time BNFL's latest, but delayed, plant for
reprocessing  spent   fuel--the  THORP
plant--comes on stream in 1990, around
1300 tonnes of fuel from Advanced Gas
cooled reactors (AGR's) will be stored in
ponds at individual power stations.
  AGR fuel is clad in stainless steel, which
corrodes and so cannot be kept for long
periods under water.  If the spent fuel
cannot be reprocessed, alternative dry stor-
age is needed. Yet as the latest generation of
AGR's comes into operation BNFL has no
firm plans for a successor to THORP. With
a 10 year operational life, the new
reprocessing plant is only intended to
handle 6000 tonnes of spent fuel--two
thirds of which may come from overseas.
    To date the CEGB has not signed any
contract for using THORP because it
believes it is being offered worse terms than
the BNFL's overseas customers. A spokes-
man for BNFL refused to comment on its
pricing policy but admitted "there is natu-
rally some hard commercial bargaining
going on".
    Against this background, the board's
proposals for a massive central store to
house AGR spent fuel (see last issue, p 289)
becomes a crucial bargaining counter over
BNFL reprocessing prices.
    The store will be built in stages and could
eventually have enough room in its 30
vaults to store 6000 tonnes of spent fuel for
up to 100 years.
    Dr John Wright, the director of the
CEGB's technology planning and research
division, stressed last week that this would
give the board considerable "flexibility"
over future reprocessing options "in the
event that BMFL's costs seem to be esca-
lating." Wright said the board might go
overseas for reprocessing, if necessary.
    The store is being designed to receive fuel
from 14 AGR reactors. No site has been
picked. But there is sufficient space at the
Sellafield complex in Cumbria, home of the
BNFL's existing re-processing facilities, to
accommodate the concrete blockhouse
which could grow up to 343 m by 55 m.
    Wright agreed last week that there would
be advantages in locating the store close to
reprocessing plant.                       []


Cross-section of CEGB's waste-fuel store:
<1After delivery in flasks to the store (top)>1
   <1the irradiated fuel would be dried and>1
<1then transferred to special containers>1
<1made of tow-carbon steel. As well as a>1
<1temporary mechanical feat, these>1
<1containers would be seam-welded once the>1
<1dried fuel has been received.>1
    <1Corrosion-control of the containers and>1
<1the vaults wilt be achieved by recirculating>1
<1a portion of the warm outgoing air back>1
<1into the inlet ducts. The cell inlet ducts>1
<1are designed so that they can be opened>1
<1up or closed off to match the cell heat.>1
  <1The cells will initially be totally closed: as>1
<1containers are added and the temperature>1
<1rises, airflow will be increased. The>1
<1containers will be "fed" with dried fuel>1
<1using technology developed by the board>1
<1and the National Nuclear Corporation to>1
<1load AGR's.>1                               []


<2Florida high-lights>2

HIGH TECHNOLOGY has taken over
at the Port Everglades power station,
run by the Florida Light and Power
Company. The station has been converted
to burn confiscated marujuana which has
been piling up in the warehouses of the
local police forces.
    Last year Port Everglades burnt more
than 800 tonnes of marijuana. One tonne
of marijuana has a thermal value of 2.7
barrels of oil. The company is now plan-
ning to convert two more stations.      []
<2Any takers for a satellite to spy for peace?>2

POLITICAL prevarication is
blocking moves to set up an
international agency to monitor
military activity throughout the
world using a network of spy
satellites. As the US and the
Soviet       Union      discuss
disarmament in Geneva the
two super-powers continue to
oppose plans for an inter-
national agency that would give
other nations a look-in on their
military     manoeuvres.    The
agency could be in business for
less money than NATO spends
in one hour, say its backers.
  By providing reliable infor-
mation on military activity,
satellite surveillance could cut
out the uncertainty which fuels
arms spending. And it could monitor the
implementation of disarmament treaties.
  In December the United Nations urged
governments to get on with setting up a
satellite system, Lasst month members of
the national parliaments of the 21 nations
belonging to the Council of Europe called
on ministers to look again at setting up a
international agency. It is now four years
since the UN first backed the idea.
  At the moment only the US and the
soviet Union operate networks of military
surveillance satellites. They are not anxious
for others to get in on the act. However,
China, France, Japan, India and the Euro-
pean Space Agency will all soon be able to

offer satellite surveillance services as an
adjunct to their other activities in space.
  France first suggested the idea of an
international agency in 1978. And Hubert
Bortzmeyer, the French space agency's
military adviser, chaired a UN experts
group that reported in 1981. A year ago
France apparently shelved a plan for a
military observation satellite of its own. But
it will soon be considered again in defence
budget talks, a French government official
told <1New Scientist.>1
  Satellite information now provided by
the two big powers is often disputed. In
1976 the USSR claimed that its spy
satellites had revealed that a nuclear

           explosion took place in the
           Kalahari desert in southern
           Africa.  But the US said its
           satellites had ruled out the
           claim. There are no independent
           arbiters.
              An international agency
           could monitor oompliance with
           international arms regulations,
           such as those banning the
           military use of chemicals and
              bacteria. It could keep watch on
           military activity in the Antarc-
           tic on nuclear testing in defi-
           ance of the partial test-ban
           treaty and on the stockpling of
           toxins.
               Additional       "close-look"
           equipment could also close in
           on international crises and warn
of militatry and guerilla movements.  It
could spot border violations and blow the
whistle on breaches of cease-fire agree-
ments.  It would have its blind-spots
however.  It would not be able to spot
nuclear submarines, such as Polaris, for
example.
    Both superpowers are opposed to open-
ing up their satellite data to other nations.
The US angues that wider access to satellite
spies could be counter-productive. The
uncertainty about whether they are being
observed discourages military activity in
some nations, says Washington.
     A number of nations now have the tech-
nology to spot, from space, objects as small
as 2 metres across. The US and USSR may
be down to 20 or 30 centimetres. The
USSR apparently has a lead in radar equip-
ment able to see through clouds.
   To get monitoring underway quickly,
Bortzmeyer's report for the UN suggests
that existing satellites and ground receiving
stations could be used. All that is needed in
addition is a centre for image-processing
and interpretation, costing about
million a year.
   The next phase would give the agency its
own   ground    receiving-stations.   Ten
stations around the world would cost about
$60 million to build aad $20 million per
year to run.
   Finally it could get its own satellites.
Three satellites, with optical, infra-red and
radar facilities, would cost around $200
million. A "close-look" satellite would cost
as much again,
   The whole bill, says Bortzmeyer,
amounts to just one per cent of the world's
current spending on its war machines. Is
this an offer the world cannot afford to
refuse?                                  []

                <2Jeux sans frontiers--live from space>2

GOVERNMENT officials in France are
discussing a plan to flood western
Europe with French-language pro-
grammes, drawn from other European
nations and Canada, The material would
be beamed to roof-top antennae via
France's national TV satellite, which is due
to enter orbit in 1985.

   The officials have started talks about the
scheme with other French-speaking coun-
tries including Belgium and Switzerland
and the provincial administration in
Quebec.

   The international compendium of
French material would form one of the four
channels of TV that France plans for its
satellite. It looks as though programmes
from France's three current TV channels
(all of which are run by TDF, the public
broadcasting administration) will form a
second satellite channel. The craft would
also relay two new channels, one run by a
commercial organisation and the other a
subscription service that TDF would run.

   One further possibility is that France will
lease one of the channels to Compagnie
Luxembourgeoise de Telediffusion, the
company that produces TV programmes in
Luxembourg, CTL wants to operate its
own TV satellite but is having trouble rais-
ing the money.

   And the company runs the risk of offend-
ing the French government (which owns
two of its shareholders) by beaming into
France programmes that the country's
rulers don't like.

   Eurosatellite, an industrial consortium

based in Munich, is building the French
satellite, plus two others--one for West
Germany and one that will act as a "spare"
in orbit for the first two.
   Germany is having even more trouble
deciding what to do with its satellite than
France. At present, it looks as if the craft
   (which will be launched in 1985) will carry
   only test signals to start with. The present
   Christian Democrat government favours
   letting private enterprise run one or more
   of the three channels.
     Meanwhile, in Canada, people are this
   month receiving their first taste of
   subscription TV. Two companies are offer-
   ing "pay TV" over the whole of Canada
   with a further four operating a similar
   service in Ontario, Alberta, Quebec,
   Alberta and in the Atlantic provinces. The
   programmes are beamed from Anik C, a
   telecommnications satellite that went into
   orbit at the end of last year.             []
                          <2Britain may stock up on strategic metals>2

THE BRITISH government may be
about to go on a spending spree
--buying up stocks of rare metals for use by
industry if stocks run short. According to
reports in the metal industry, ministers
may soon drop their opposition to building
a stockpile of imported metals such as
chromium, cobalt and manganese that are
vital to the British economy.
  Three years ago a study by officials at the
Department of Industry apparently backed
the idea. But ministers were put off by the
cost. Now underspending of #2000 million
on this year's planned public expenditure
may persuade ministers to dive into the
metals market.
  Many of the metals come from countries
which are either politically unstable or
have a near-monopoly. Britain relies for
manganese, chromium and cobalt on
countries in southern Africa, where the
chances of unrest over the next decade are
high. The UK obtains nearly all its
niobium from one mine in Brazil. And a
strike in nickel mines in Canada a few
years ago affected Britain seriously because
they were by far the country's biggest
supplier.
  The recession has kept stocks of the key
materials high. But any economic upturn,

could face British industry with a "panic"
about supplies.
     A study in West Germany in 1978 found
that a 30 per cent reduction in chromium

imports over one year could produce a fall
of 25 per cent in gross domestic product.
West Germany is now considering stock-
piling key metals. Among other western
  nations, France and the US already keep
  stockpiles. The US's supplies are supposed
  to be for use only in national catastrophes
  such as war. There was even a stock of

  down for emergency bedding until recently.
  Some of Britain's biggest firms have
joined the lobbying for a stockpile. Ken
  Revell, chief technologist at BL Tech-
  nology, says he is concerned at the time the
  government study has taken.  David
  Alexander, head of laboratories at Rolls-
  Royce's aero engine division, thinks that
  industry should not be asked to keep stock-
  piles itself. "At a time of recession it would
  be a hell of a burden," he says.
    But the cost of keeping even small stocks
  of the rare metals is worrying ministers.
  Purchasing the volume of nickel, cobalt
  and molybdenum that Britain consumes in
  just six months would drain some #150
  million from public coffers. Deciding when
  to release it--and at what price--would
  lead to more headaches. But the pressure
  from industry is growing.
     Meanwhile a leading advocate of
  stockpiling told <1New Scientist>1 that if the
  government decides to go ahead, it should
  keep the news to itself.  Professor Jack
  Nutting of Leeds University said: "If you
  announce that a stockpile is being set up,
  this is the death of the operation. It destroys
  the point of the exercise by driving up
  prices and disrupting the metals
  market."     []
                          <2Cash drain threatens preservation of pastures>2
THE WELL-PUBLISHED sacking of Sir
       Ralph Verney,    chairman of the
Nature Conservancy Council last month
may turn out to be the only the second-
worst blow to the council this year. New
guidelines just issued by the government
mean that the NCC and national park
authorities will soon have to pay land-
owners huge amounts of compensation if
they want to preserve scientifically valuable
sites from intensive farming.
   John Bowers, an agricultural economist
at Leeds University, estimates that they will
have to pay double the true --conservation
value" to protect sites--the rest goes on
compensating for lost grants and agricul-
tural subsidies of various kinds.

   The guidelines, which have been issued
by the Department of the Environment,
govern compensation to farmers in
national parks and sites of special scientific
interest (SSSI).  Under the Wildlife and
Countryside Act 1981 the NCC must offer
a management agreement to any farmer on
an SSSl whose application for an agricul-
tural grant it turns down on conservation
grounds. In the case of farmers in national
parks the park authority must offer a
management agreement. The new guide-
lines are bound to cause controversy
because they effectively transfer the cost of
agricultural support from the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the NCC

and the national parks' authorities, whose

budgets are already stretched to breaking
point.

   The guidelines require a farmer to be
compensated for the loss of "anticipated
future profits" as a result of his agreeing not
to invest in certain agricultural improve-
ments.

   Those future profits include grants that
he might have received from the govern-
ment for installing drains (these can cover
up to 80 per cent of the cost of the scheme)

and the value of anticipated production,
which may be doubled by subsidies under
the EEC's Common Agn-cultural Policy. It
all goes on the conservationists' bill.
   "The guidelines make conservation look
a damn sight more expensive than it is,"
Bowers, told <1New Scientist.>1 "Conservation
is being asked to take on the burden of
social policies for rural Britain."
   The guidelines may turn out to be
unworkable. The Act requires the NCC or
local parks authority to make a firm offer of
compensation within three months of a
grant application being rejected. If no firm
offer has been made within three months
the farmer is free to go ahead with his
original plans.
   The council has only ten land agents and
they must formulate management agree-
ments for any of the 3800 SSSIs in Britain.
This makes it highly unlikely that the coun-
cil will be able to meet the three-month
deadline on any site.
   Another worry is that the existence of
guaranteed compensation will encourage
some farmers to apply for grants for opera-
tions that they have no real intention of
carrying out, simply in order to become
eligible for compensation. Already more
than 100 management agreements are
under discussion and the number is
expected to increase dramatically now
that the guidelines are in force.
                        Catherine Caufield []
                        <2How conservation will bankrupt the conservationists>2

                        TAKES 25 hectares of pasture that a farmer wants
                         to drain and plough for winter wheat.  Net
                        income on the pasture is #2450 per year.  But,
                        under winter wheat, the income would be #9600.
                        The potential extra profit for the farmer is an
                        impressive #7150.
                          Putting in drains costs #16250.  Grants reduce
                        that to #10150.  If this were paid for over 20 years
                        at 10 per cent interest, the annual cost would be
                        #1200.  The extra income from winter wheat, less
                        the annual cost of putting in the drains comes to
                        #5950--this is what the Nature Conservancy Coun-
                        cil would have to pay the farmer as compensation
                        for preserving his pasture.
                          But much of that extra income arises from
                        subsidies given to the farmer in artificially high
                        prices set by the EEC.  This amounts to 45 per cent
                        of the value of the wheat.  Bowers calculates that, of
                        the #5950 that the NCC pays, #500 goes in
                        compensating for grants not received and #3150 in
                        consumer subsidies that the farmer missed out on.
                        The remainder, the "true cost of conservation" is
                        just #2300.   []

<2French flock to computer centre>2
-----------------------------------
The Centre Mondial is a walk-in centre where ordinary people can try their hand at
computers. It also carries out research into Third World needs for microcomputers. Both
activities are inspired by a language called LOGO and a man named Papert
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                 Christopher Roper
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


     THERE IS a place in the leafy Avenue Matignon, just off
     the Champs-Elyse/es, where children and grown-ups
     can learn to use computers at their ease. The walk-in
centre is the result of two years' struggle by an international
group of scientists to realise an ideal. Their dream was
nothing less than a revolutionary project to bring computers
and ordinary people together. Their belief is that we stand at
the beginning of an age in which the microcomputer will truly
become part of human culture. An age in which people, who
talk in one way, and machines, which talk in another, can
begin a fruitful dialogue.
   The founders' concern was to reverse the popular view of
computers as a threat rather than a benefit to the peoples of
the world. Their idealism has been battered and a little com-
promised along the way but it was rewarded when the Centre
Mondial Informatique et Ressources Humaines opened in
Paris.
  A  good deal of credit for the organisation must go to Jean-
Jacques Servan-Schreiber, the French politician and pub-
licist, who established the centre with extraordinary speed. Its
conception was in early 1981; operational status was reached
in March 1982. A number of countries, including Kuwait,
Senegal, India, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, have
expressed interest in collaborating with the centre's work. But
it must also be said that Servan-Schreiber's unwillingness to
share the responsibility for management with the centre's
scientists contributed to their subsequent departures.
   The man who inspired many of the staff to come in the first
place was Seymour Papert. This South African, who held
chairs of mathematics and education at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), was the centre's first scientific
director. He is a folk hero in microcomputing circles for his
development of LOGO (a high-level computer language
popular with teachers) and his book <1Mindstorm.>1 The book,

inspired by the Swiss educational theorist Jean Piaget,
describes how contact with computers can help children
develop a sense "of the deepest ideas from science, from
mathematics, and from the art of intellectual model build-
ing". Papert has been described by Marvin Minsky, director
of the artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT, as the "greatest
of all living educationalists".


  On the ground floor of the plush Avenue Matignon head-
quarters, children sit absorbed in front of banks of Apple II
computers. Some are engaged in their own programming
projects, or explore Turtle Graphics (the best-known feature
of LOGO). Others simply play variants of Space Invaders,
Mission Control or Panic.
  Friendly staff guide casual visitors to their first encounter
with LOGO. This can be disconcerting if your french is poor
and all you want is an interview with Seymour Papert. The
free-for-all on the ground floor is a shop window of the
centre's intentions and an affirmation of its belief that com-
puting should be accessible to everyone. The day I was there,
all the children were boys, but this apparently has more to do
with French culture than computer culture.
  In practice, if not in spirit, there is a complete divorce
between the ground floor, full of people who have walked in
off the street, and the upper floors, where research and
development on both hardware and software for the Third
World take place.
  When I visited the centre, last September, the clash of
French and American academic cultures was disconcerting at
first. The atmosphere was casually chaotic, far more akin to
an American university than to a French laboratory, but the
secretaries were unmistakably French. Everywhere, cursors
blinked and winked from monitor screens. Fittingly their
messages were variously in English, French and Wolof (a
West African language).
  There are a number of projects in their infancy. One group
is developing hardware for a personal computer, sufficiently
robust and inexpensive to be useful in the Third World. The
same group is also looking at interfaces to video discs, they
hope to provide, perhaps, a medical dictionary on a screen.
The second major activity is the testing of experimental
devices and programs in the Third World. In addition
is a project to explore applications of personel computers in
France, with emphasis on the needs of children, unemployed
people and the elderly.
  The interdependence of these activities at the centre is
clear. Computers which operate reliably in classrooms and
offices in Boston, London or Paris, may quickly fail in a dusty
village in Senegal. It is conventional wisdom that software
developrnent lags several years behind the hardware. At the
Centre Mondial, it looks to the outside observer as if the
problem is reversed. The staff hoped that a French micro, the
Thompson 07, could be modified for use in their first major
pilot project near Marseilles. But production of the modified
machine could not start in time.
  The centre's directors recognise that the price of a micro-
computer still has to fall a long way before the machines can
play an important role in Third World education. But
developments in Britain and the United States over the past
two years suggest that micros need ultimately to cost little
more than a tape recorder or a good transistor radio.
  Dr Harry Goldberger, another MIT veteran who directs the
centre's medical group, is interested in the British micro-
computer "Husky" which is used by meter readers and the
army. Its rugged construction and large memory may make it
suitable for experiment; but at #3400 it is far too expensive for
widespread use in the Third World.
  The question of hardware touches a delicate problem.
Some critics see the centre simply as a marketing arm of the
French electronics industry. Such a charge was levelled in the
US Congress last May when Servan-Schreiber and a delega-
tion from the centre testified to the House Committee on
Science and Technology.
  The allegation was foreign to Papert and his colleagues, but
it is true that Servan-Schreiber would be politically safer and
the centre financially more secure, if French industry could
contribute substantially to the hardware required for pilot
projects. The conflict between the scientist's idealism and the
political pressures on Servan-Schreiber played a major part in
the events leading to the departure of Papert last October.
  Servan-Schreiber was non-executive chairman of the
board. In practice, he intervened in every aspect of adminis-
tration. Last autumn, without any consultation with the
executive director, Professor Nicholas Negroponte, or Papert,
control of the centre passed from the Ministry of Research to
the Ministry of Communications. The shift signified a funda-
mental change in the priorities of the centre and closer links
with the French electronics industry. The statutes of the insti-
tute were altered at the same time to give Servan-Schreiber
executive control.
   Papert did not resign. He simply refused to recognise the
new administration. But effectively, both he and Negroponte
had been shunted aside. Papert went at once. Negroponte,
who is on two year's leave of absence from MIT decided to
stay on to the end of the present academic year. It seems likely
that the team they gathered around them will now disperse.
   Papert says that the idea for the centre was absolutely
correct. He blames himself for being naive about how such
centres come into being, and about how they can be run. He
feels that he should have heeded those who said that political
relations between state and industry in France, and between
France and the Third World, precluded the autonomous
international centre he had envisaged. In fact, several of the
warnings were from colleagues at the centre who had
withdrawn their association from the centre early last year.
   The future is not entirely clear. Papert's ideas, as funda-
mental to success as those of Servan-Schreiber, transcend
problems of hardware or software. They are rooted in
Papert's definition of himself as an "educational utopian"-
   His model of what computer learning should be like is
taken from the "Samba schools" in Rio de Janeiro, where
experts and stars gather a coterie of followers and students to
prepare for the carnival. He is sure that a computational
"Samba school", or something like it, will catch on some-
where. Probably in California or New England in a middle-
income community which is already rich in high technology.
   But Papert wants something more, as he wrote in <1Mind->1
<1storm:>1 "I want to know what kind of computer culture can
grow in communities where there is not already rich tech-
nophilic soil. I want to know and I want to help make it
happen." It is hardly suprising that he should have jumped at
the chance of establishing his "Samba school" in Paris. He
seemed most excited by the project the centre has already
launched in Senegal, where they have implemented LOGO in
Wolof, the country's language.
   Work done by the Senegalese group has convinced Papert
that they are on the right track. LOGO and the languages
which follow could allow people of the Third World to
recover control of their cultural and educational develop-
ment for the first time since elite education began to be
Europeanised last century.
   Papert, as he reconsiders his future, refuses to regret the
experience. The centre had a free rein during the summer,
when French bureaucrats were in aestivation, and he believes
the stimulation and direction it gave to work in France,
Senegal and Switzerland to be irreversible. For Papert, the
first months of the centre gave the idea of what would be
feasible if genuine international cooperation between
scientists were encouraged.
   Papert also recognises that much of what he wants remains
in the realm of aspiration. Some of Papert's greatest admirers
fear that although LOGO is the best of the new generation of
languages, it cannot yet justify the high hopes vested in it.
Even before Papert's departure, they foresaw a conflict
between the immense amount of long-term research needed
and Servan-Schreiber's desire for quick results.
   Papert and another of his closest colleagues in the develop-
ment of LOGO, Guy Monpetit, are both former students of
Jean Piaget, the Swiss educational theorist. Piaget believed
that educational development had to come from within the
child, through a process of building and testing hypotheses
within the microworld of a child's perceptions. Sometimes
Papert's writings and his enthusiasm for changing the struc-
ture of education seem to place him in affinity with such
educational radicals as Ivan Illich and Everett Reimer, but
this is misleading.
   Most of Illich's ideas were developed in the Third World as
a political response to the economic impossibility of universal
"Western education". Illich asked whether such education
was even desirable, let alone possible. Papert builds on a far
older European tradition of cognitive psychology. (Piaget's
most influential books were written more than 50 years ago.)
The applications of Papert's ideas to the Third World had
more to do with Servan-Schreiber's priorities, than with the
immediate concerns of the computer scientists the politician
had gathered.
   This is not to cast doubt on the sincerity of Papert and his
colleagues. It is to emphasise that Papert is fighting major
battles over the nature of the relationship between computers
and education. His fight is not just for the Third World, but
for North America and Europe as well.
   He does not see computers as a mere aid to teaching, but
as an integral part of providing a child with Piagetian materi-
als to learn with. LOGO's particular characteristics allow a
beginner to build complex procedures out of very simple
steps, to use a word to cover a list of small procedures. This
makes it an ingenious medium for the construction of micro-
worlds, which abide by rules created by the child user.
Equally, LOGO can be used by a teacher to implant complex
ideas from, say, theoretical physics, which can then be ex-
plored by a student.
   Dr Jack Demaine of Loughborough University's Educa-
tion department, has criticised the "deschooling" ideas of
Illich. He sees Papert as going beyond Piaget. Demaine thinks
that LOGO holds the promise of giving children access to
advanced concepts at a far earlier stage than Piaget would
have thought possible.
   Papert evidently dislikes many of the first uses of com-
puters in education, but is more interested in their power to
transform schools than to abolish them. Professional teachers
in the UK, even those who are enthusiastic about Papert's
ideas, warn of the difficulties to be overcome in curriculum
development and teacher training.
   It is not so much a problem of hardware development
outpacing software, or vice versa. It is a more complex ten-
sion between the time it takes for any educational system to
assimilate innovation, and the pressing need of computer
manufacturers and software publishers to market new
products. Both teachers and entrepreneurs have to speculate
about the impact of microprocessors on society. They are
under pressure to resolve questions which cannot be settled
around a conference table.
   Recognising the pressures on computer teachers, and the
billions of dollars, pounds, francs or yen which give weight to
those pressures, does not invalidate a central premise of the
founders of the centre. That is, the Third World needs to be
involved from the start in the development of the next
generation of machines, which will transform our lives as
much as the car did.
   It is clear when talking to people like Papert, Monpetit
(who heads LOGO Computer Systems in Montreal), or Dr
 Harry Goldberger, director of the medical programme, that
 they are not simply colleagues. They form part of a distinctive
 culture. Revealingly, they often speak of themselves coming
 out of the "LISP community". LISP stands for LIST processing
 language, a favoured language of the artificial intelligence
 community. LOGO is its most widely available dialect and
 runs on a variety of microcomputers, including Apple II, the
 BBC Micro and the Sinclair Spectrum.
   Whether the Centre Mondial succeeds or fails as an exclu-
sively French institution, or is reborn as an international
entity, the ideas and purposes underlying its foundation will
survive.  Computing capacity in the world is roughly doubling
(in number and power) every year, and the Third World will
not be immune from this growth.  LOGO emerged from the
laboratories of MIT into personal computers in the 1980s. It
is a language that needs a large memory capacity and for the
first time there were machines available to use it.  BASIC and
its dialects were designed for more limited machines.
  Papert said that people at MIT considered it was "as un-
acceptable for children to enter the computer culture by
learning computer languages, such as BASIC as it would be to
confine their reading of English poetry to pidgin English


translations". Papert does not claim that LOGO either a
final product or the "definitive computer language"; it is one
of a growing family of such languages, which are in a very
early stage of their developments.
  The underlying premise of Papert, Servan-Schreiber and
their colleagues at the Centre Mondial is that children and
adults, lawyers and journalists, the rulers and the ruled, can
all assimilate compute culture without either losing their
own, or surrendering to some centrally imposed scheme of,
knowledge.  The idea challenges scientists and non-scientists
alike, including people who may never write a computer
program in their lives, to come to terms with computers and
understand what they are about   []


-----------------------------------------

<2Paris centre grows from American roots>2

CENTRE MONDIAL grew out of the
complementary ideas of two men:
French politician Jean-Jacques, Servan-
Schreiber and American scientist Sey-
mour Papert.
  Servan-Schreiber, the president of the
centre, argued in <1World Challenge>1 that
the microprocessor should offer the Third
World an escape from misery and
poverty. Countries in Africa and Asia
should be able to skip stages of develop-
ment suffered by the older industrialised
nations.
  In Servan-Schreiber's theory, the next
generation of cheap personal computers,
accessible to ordinary conversation in
hundreds of different languages, would
begin to replace cars and radios as the
principal vectors of cultural exchange and
development.  It was a theory that
received a lot of ridicule.
  Meanwhile, computer scientists at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) were looking for ways to place
their research into artificial intelligence at
the service of people (as distinct from the
service of the United States Department

of Defence). They had plans for an inter-
national centre, with a strong educational
bias like the centre Mondial, to be spon-
sored by MIT and Harvard University.
  Papert explains that Reagan's election
in 1980 put paid to any hopes of obtain-
ing public money to establish such a
centre in the United states. Budgets were
being cut in every institution of higher
learning, and the ivied towers of MIT at
Cambridge were no exception. But even
beyond the question of funding, the
climate for educational innovation in the
US seemed unpropitious.
  Papert met Servan-Schreiber in March
1981, just as Francois Mitterrand's star
was rising to its zenith in France. Papert
and Alan Kay, who headed a Xerox
research laboratory and was a pioneer of
personal computing, were able to direct
Servan-Screiber's enthusiasm. He was per-
suaded to refine his ideas to the point of
conceiving the Centre Mondial as a work-
able and fundable project.
  Mitterrand was impressed by both
Servan-Schreiber's ideas and their
publicity value. The President of France
commissioned a report on the shape the
centre might take.  The report, largely
written by Papert, was delivered in
September 1981. The President gave his
blessing on 20 November, and the Coun-
cil of Ministers made it official on 27
January, 1982. The centre opened two
months later. The budget for its first year
was set at F66 million and at F100 mil-
lion for the next 12 months. Papert left
the centre last autumn after control
passed from the Minister of Research to
the Ministry of Communications.  The
move changed the spirit of the centre; it
became less concerned with education
and more concerned with French com-
puter sales to the Third World.
  According to Servan-Schreiber "Centre
Mondial is a place for the most eminent
scientists to find a computational en-
vironment of unmatched quality.  We
anticipate a population of researchers
that by mid-1983, will number approxi-
mately 100 scientists. The work will
include at least three pilot projects in the
Third World and a larger number of
social experiments in France."          []


<2Papert LOGO, and Turtle Graphics>2

SEYMOUR PAPERT believes that
    children learn by building their own
intellectual structures which they then
apply to reality. No one teaches a child
to walk, climb, shout, talk, play or to
manipulate grown-ups; it justs knows.
According to Papert, the understanding of
learning is genetic. The infant's problem
is to find the ideas "correct" for it to learn
with.
  The structure that Pals used as a
child was an intuitive understanding of
gears. From the age of one right through
his schooling, the mathematician-to-be
related the world to "mental gear
models".
  LOGO is a high-level language specifi-
cally written to make computers make
sense to children.  The theory is that
experimenting with programs will do two
things. First, it will give the child a sense
of power over the machine. Secondly, it
will develop intellectual structures in a
young mind that are based on a feeling
for, or an intuitive grasp of mathematical
concepts.
  Classically, learning LOGO begins with a
child's own sense of space. "Walk in a
square", someone asks. The child then
has to work out how many paces to each
side and where to turn through 90o.
  The next stage is to introduce the
Turtle. This is a hemipherical, trans-
parent drawing machine about 10 cm in
diameter. It is controlled by a computer
keyboard and it understands LOGO's
simple commands. The child types in-
structions  like    "FORWARD   50"  and
"RIGHT 90" and Turtle draws a square.
The analysis needed is the same as that
used to walk in a square.

    Now the child sits at the computer
screen. There is a small triangle in the
centre. She types "FORWARD 50" and the
triangle leaps 50 units along the <1x>1-axis.
The square is com-
pleted and she has
been introduced to
Turtle Graphics.
  Having discovered
how to draw a
square she types: TO
ZX SQUARE. The
word TO tells the
machine it is about
to get an instruction.
The child then types
four timnes: FOR-
WARD 50; RIGHT 90;
followed by END.
The     computer
now responds to the
command SQUARE
by drawing a square
50 x 50 units. Soon
she will want to
draw squares with
different       length
sides. This is easy,
because she can edit
her original defini-
tion as TO SQUARE SIDE.  The young
programmer can then type SQUARE 10 or
SQUARE 100 to produce squares of
different sizes.
  There many other procedural lan-
guages. LOGO is not "just like English" as
the advertisements say; it has a syntax
and rules which have to be learned. The
claim is that these rules can be built up
from a simple base. A child can produce
satisfying results quickly based on his or
her keyboard explorations. These results
are a valid introduction to central
concepts of computer programming. The
child programs the computer, and
                     not vice versa.
                       Turtle    Graphics
                     are not peculiar to
                     LOGO. They can be
                     emulated by other
                     languages.  The dif-
                     ference is that Turtle
                     Graphics would not
                     provide a valid
                     introduction to those
                     other languages. The
                     importance of LOGO
                     is that it is a lan-
                     guage, developed by
                     the artificial intel-
                     ligence community,
                     to be implemented
                     in primary schools.
                     It has been tailored
                     for its purpose and
                     has been tested ex-
                     tensively over the
                     past 12 years. LOGO
                     could not be used as
                             BASIC is used to run
                     a small business. On
the other hand, LOGO may provide power-
ful, future tool for adults who find BASIC
a turn-off yet want to learn computing.
   Seymour Papert may be an educational
Utopian, but he and his associate Guy
Monpetit at LOGO Computer Systems in
Montreal have one trick that other soft-
ware houses will envy. The LOGO disc
they produce for Apple is virtually
uncopyable. You have to buy your own.
Dammit. []
<2Why the safety lamp increased accidents>2
-------------------------------------------

  Today's myth has it that the Davy miner's lamp brought safety to Britain's coal pits. The

reality is exactly the opposite. The introduction of the lamp allowed more coal to be dug and

more profits to be made. But more miners died in the process.

                                    David Albury and Joseph Schwartz


   IN 1815 Sir Humphry Davy, later to become president of
   the Royal society, invented what came to be known as the
   Davy miner's safety lamp. This lamp, through its ability to

reduce explosions, was claimed to produce a great
improvement in the working conditions that the miners had
to endure. John Paris, in his biography of Davy published in
1825, wrote: "I have been able to present to the world a

complete history of those proceedings which have so happily
led to discovery of which it is not too much to say that it is at
once the pride of science, the triumph of humanity and the
glory of the age in which we live."
   Far from reducing accidents, however, the lamp
led to an increase in explosions and fatalities. In the 18 years
(1798-1816) prior to the introduction of the lamp there were
27 explosions and 477 deaths in the coal mining districts of

Durham and Northumberland. In the 18 years after its intro-
duction (1817-35) there were 42 explosions and 538 deaths.
Between 1839 and 1845, 224 men and boys were killed by
explosions. In 1848 an experienced mines inspector and
engineer could write in <1A Treatise on the Winning and Work->1
<1ing of Collieries:>1 "Explosions of gas have unfortunately
become so numerous in late years that it would be impossible
in the absence of specific records to enumerate them." And
by 1874, Richard Fynes, a historian sympathetic to the
miners could write: "Experience, however, proved that [the
lamps] were the most deadly instrument ever devised in
mining operations and were the cause of more sacrifice of
human life than ever had occurred before."
  The actual story of the lamp is not, however, one of good
guys (the scientists) versus bad guys (the mine owners): it
reveals, rather, how the interests of those in control affect the
course of a research investigation. The Davy lamp was the
direct result of the mine owners' concern to recover coal, not

from deeper shafts but from existing workings that were
inaccessible because of a process known as "creep". When the
veins of coal were mined, pillars of coal had to be left to hold
up the roof of the mine, rather like the pillars in a multistorey
car park. The weight of the roof pushed the pillars down and
the resulting pressure also forced the floor to buckle and
move upwards. The downward motion of the pillars and the
upward motion of the floor gradually combined to shut off
the passageways and close the mine. The pillars of coal left
behind were compressed, releasing large amounts of an
explosive mixture of air and methane called firedamp. As
early as 1738 mine owners were complaining that two-thirds
of the mines were unworkable because of creep and the large
amounts of explosive methane that were released.
  The owners' research problem was to get a light that would
function in the methane-rich atmosphere of the "crept"
workings. Existing lighting was supplied by the hazardous
open flame of candles, oil lamps or by a steel mill, a method
of producing sparks of light by holding a flint against a spin-
ning steel wheel. Such mills were not only expensive, they
were also unusable in the so-called fiery seams of the crept
workings. In 1815 Davy solved the problem. He devised a
cheap lamp that would burn in the methane-rich atmosphere
of the crept workings without instantly exploding.
  The monetary value of the lamp, as opposed to its human-
itarian value, was greatly appreciated by all the major prin-
cipals concerned. John Buddle, a mine inspector and owner's
agent with whom Davy had consulted, wrote to Davy on 1
June, 1816: "I am convinced that with the happy invention of
the safe lamp large proportions of the coal mines of the
empire will be rendered available, which otherwise might
have remained inaccessible."
  The owners of the Durham and Northumberland collieries
showed their appreciation by presenting Davy with a set of
silver plate worth #2500 (a miner's wage at the time was #50
a year) at a testimonial dinner on 11 October, 1817. Inscribed
on the centre piece were the names of the Duke of
Northumberland, the largest colliery owner, and 36 owners
and officials from 26 collieries in Durham and
Northumberland. At the presentation, Sir Humphry did not
pass up the chance to impress upon the business world the
great value of science to their endeavours: "Science, gentle-
men, is of infinitely more importance to a state than may at
first sight appear possible; for no source of wealth and power
can be entirely independent of it; and no class of men are so
well able to appreciate its advantages as that to which I am
addressing myself. You have not only derived from it the
means of raising your subterranean wealth, but those also of
rendering it available to the public."
  In 1818, the Walker colliery which had been closed for the
preceding 30 years was reopened. In a short space of time the
crept workings in Wallsend, Wellington, Percy Main,
Bebburn, Jarrow, Elswich and Berwell were all reopened. The
problem from the owners' point of view had been solved.
But when the problem is looked at from the miners' point
of view a rather different history comes into view. The prob-
lem is no longer how to excavate the crept workings but how
to make the mines safe. As early as 1662, 2000 miners from
Tyne and Wear had petitioned the King about insufficient
ventilation in the mines. They demanded that a second shaft
be sunk to afford protection against the aftermath of
explosions--the main cause of death in a methane explosion
being not the explosion itself, but poisoning by carbon
monoxide or suffocation by choke damp (carbon dioxide) or
other products of combustion.
  The owners turned a deaf ear to such an expensive demand.
In 1816, the year Davy's lamp was introduced, J. H. H.
Holmes, a mining inspector, published a book containing
"accounts of the explosions from fire damp which have oc-
curred for the last 20 years; their causes and the means pro-
posed for their remedy and for general improvements of the
mining systems by new methods of ventilation." Holmes
pointed out that Davy's lamp had many faults. First, the
methane could explode by entering too quickly through the
gauze. Secondly, the wire gauze could detach itself from the
lamp body, permitting the flame to escape and explode in the
surrounding atmosphere. And finally, Holmes noted that
"the lamp is liable to accident by falling pieces of coal, by
dusty atmosphere clogging the gauze making it red hot, by
coal particles igniting on the hot wire mesh." All of these
accidents occurred regularly in the years after the lamp's
introduction.
  In 1835 a select committee on explosions in the mines
rejected all the lamps currently in use because they were all
liable to internal explosions in methane blowers. And the
protagonists of Davy's lamp themselves were forced to admit
there were problems. John Buddle, the inspector at Hebburn
colliery, wrote in his June 1816 letter to Davy that accidents
would still happen, either because of fate or by individual
negligence. "It would however be quite unreasonable to
expect the accidents were never to happen when the wire
gauze lamps are used; for it must be remembered, setting
aside the chance of their being damaged by some of the
casualties incidental to coal mining, they are to be entrusted
to the management of a body of men among whom negligent
individuals will be found."
But the owners had their lamp. Holmes's recommenda-
tions for ventilation were rejected. Davy's lamp was so
simple. And cheap too! Why bother? Despite a spirited cor-
respondence in both the London and Tyneside newspapers
about the need for ventilation and the defects of Davy's lamp,
Holmes was unable to get his proposals considered by the
rigid and uncompromising owners.
  The miners, for their part, continued to be well aware of the
importance of ventilation. They quickly learned that Davy's
lamp was particularly unsafe when the methane was released
in jets, or "blowers" as they were called. Under these condi-
tions the methane jets pushed the candle flame outside the
gauze, causing explosions. Richard Fynes noted that: "The
men were sufficiently endowed with natural interest to be
observant of the effect of wind upon the ventilation of the
mines, and even as late as 1822, before barometers and ther-
mometers were generally used in the pits to indicate the state
of the temperature, if the wind were blowing from the south-
east threatening rain, the men refused to work."
  And, in 1849, before the House of Lords select committee
on the cause of accidents in the mines, a miners' petition-
argued that the owners were practising a false economy in
not supplying a "sufficient quantity of brattices, doors and
stoppings to convey a sufficient quantity of wholesome air" to
miners underground.
  But how did it happen that the Davy miner's lamp worked
out so well for the owners and so badly for the miners? To
understand this, we first need to see how the problem of safety
in the mines came to the attention of Sir Humphry Davy. On
25 May, 1812, the Felling pit in Durham exploded, killing 92
men and boys. It was the worst mine explosion in 20 years
and a culmination of a series of explosions caused by the
owners, eagerness to bring out coal from the crept workings.
The survivors, their friends and families, and the friends and
families of the dead men and boys were outraged. In the
words of J. H. H. Holmes, "They turned the poignancy of their
feelings into distrust and imputations upon the proprietors
and overseers of the mines." Six weeks later, when the
remaining bodies were brought out, militant miners, veterans
of the 1819 miners strike had
agitated successfully enough
for Holmes to comment:
"Their great grief was dis-
turbed by agitators and others
to create distrust and con-
fusion by acrimonious and
malignant observation."
  Something had to be done.
A year later, on 10 October,
1813, a group of prominent
citizens formed the Sun-
derland Committee to deal
with, as they put it, "these
dreadful calamities". Matters
were not helped when the
same mine exploded two
months later on 15 Decem-
ber, 1813. The committee called in George Stephenson, Reid
Clanny and Holmes who were working on safe lamps and ven-
tilation. They did not call miners. One of the committee mem-
bers, Reverend John Grey, knew Davy and the committee
agreed that "the philosopher" should be consulted. Davy,
unfortunately, was on his first continental tour. The matter
rested there until his return, during which time Clanny and
Stephenson were working on their own versions of a safe lamp.
  As Davy wrote later, John Buddle, the mine inspector,
convinced him that, "as far as ventilation was concerned, the
 resources of modern science had been fully employed; and
 that a mode of preventing accidents was only to be sought
 for in a method of lighting the mines free from danger."
 Taking several samples of firedamp in glass bottles, Sir
Humphry returned to London telling Buddle, "I think I can
do something for you".
  Thus Davy's brief was rigidly defined. He spoke to no
miners. He was told--and he believed--that the problem was
 not one of ventilation. His brief, in short, was the owners'
 brief--to build a lamp that would work in the methane-rich
 atmospheres that existed in crept workings. It was not to
 investigate mine safety but to design a lamp.
  Davy returned to the Royal Institution in London on 30
October, 1815. In two weeks he transmitted an answer to the
Royal Society in a paper that is often cited as a prime example
of the scientific method. Davy reported that if a candle were
surrounded by a wire gauze mesh, the gas would diffuse into
the gauze enclosed space and burn there without exploding.
The wire surfaces cooled the burning gas as it came into con-
tact with them to a temperature below the ignition point of the
gas outside the cage. This was the desired "safety" lamp. "It is
evident then that to prevent explosions in coal mines, it is
only necessary to use air-tight lanterns supplied with air from
tubes of small diameter or from openings covered with wire
gauze . . . Common lanterns may easily be adapted to the
purpose."
  The lamp was tried by Buddle and Davy at the Hebburn
colliery on 1 January, 1816, with good results. That is, the
thing did not immediately explode. Davy had solved
his problem.
  Davy's experiments are often cited as a classic exarnple of
the methods used in 19th century physics and chemistry
research. He purified the substance to be tested. He deter-
mined that the most explosive mixture of the purified
methane and air was in the ratio of 1:8. He tested the 1:8 mix-
ture in bottles of various sizes until he found that it would not
explode in long narrow tubes that offered a large cooling sur-
face. And, by extending this line of argument, he found that
surrounding the flame by a wire gauze had the same cooling
effect. He explored the variables systematically to come up
with a solution. But, of course, safety had been defined out of
the problem. Davy had found a way to burn a candle in a
methane-rich atmosphere.
  It turns out that despite the accolades of later historians,
                           Davy had formidable com-
                           petition for the creation of a
                           lamp. George Stephenson,
                           later to become famous as a
                           master engineer and designer
                           of Britain's railway loco-
                           motives, held little truck with
                           "natural philosophy". He was
                           employed at the time at
                           Killingworth colliery, in
                           charge of the steam engines
                           used to raise coal and water
                           from the mines. Being an
                           "illiterate mechanic", Steph-
                           enson had no time for the
                           niceties of laboratory re-
                           search. Instead he designed
                           lamps on the spot and took
them straight down into the mines to test them on the jets of
methane. He discovered that a glass-enclosed lamp with small
openings at the top and bottom to let the air
in and the smoke out made a safe lamp. He tested
his first successful model on 27 October, 1815 in Killing-
worth colliery, two months before Davy tested his at Hebburn
colliery on the first day of 1816. The stage was set for a nice
priority fight. Who would get the credit, the "illiterate" Steph-
enson or the "philosopher" Davy?
  Stephenson grew increasingly irritated at being ignored by
the owners and the newspapers. Two sections of the middle
class girded up for a fight; the rising mechanics and practical
men of industry versus the established professional men of
science and culture. The <1London Morning Chronicle>1 edi-
torialised on 16 December, 1816 that Mr Stephenson, "an
ingenious but illiterate mechanic" had made a contribution,
but "the real fact is that Sir Humphry's contrivance is simple,
convenient and efficacious. He has rendered a great service to
humanity by the invention".
  Stephenson, for his part, organised directly among the coal
owners for whom he was rendering a valuable service. At a
meeting in Newcastle, the Committee of Coal Owners in New-
castle voted in favour both of Stephenson's claim for priority
and to give him some money for it.
  As Goethe, writing in Germany in 1823, remarked:
"Questions of science are frequently career questions. A single
discovery may make a man famous and lay the foundation of
his fortunes as a citizen . . . Each and every newly observed
phenomenon is a discovery, every discovery is property.
Touch a man's property and his passions are immediately
aroused.                                          []
<2MONITOR>2
<2Schizophrenia:  the case for viruses>2
COULD schizophrenia be an infect-
ious disease, transmitted between
genetically susceptible people and

occurring in seasonal "epidemics"? This
suggestion, made recently by Tim Crow at
the MRC's Clinical Research Centre at
Harrow and published in the <1Lancet>1 (vol I,
p 1735, is still highly speculative, but his
report draws attention to the fact that the
biological nature of this much feared illness
could soon be understood.

     For the psychiatrist, the diagnosis of
schizophrenia depends on the presence of a
number of characteristic symptoms. The
patient may suffer from hallucinations
(typically   auditory),   delusions,    and
complain that his actions are being
controlled by some "alien" force. These
symptoms are often termed "positive"
since they are in a sense added to normal
experience. However, the illness may also
be associated with additional, "negative"
symptoms, such as poverty of speech, loss
of drive and emotional responsiveness, and
occasionally intellectual impairment.
      The relative diagnostic importance of
these symptoms has been in dispute until
quite recently, when evidence for a variety
of biochemical and structural deficits in the
brains of schizophrenics began to emerge.
In the late 1960s it was found that the drug
amphetamine could induce some of the
symptoms of schizophrenia in otherwise
normal subjects. Amphetamine produces
its effects by causing certain neurons to
release more of the neurotransmitter,
dopamine--one of the many chemicals
used in the brain to transmit signals from
one cell to another--suggesting that schizo-
phrenics either produced too much, or were
too sensitive to the actions of the trans-
mitter. The "dopamine" hypothesis is now
well established. Most of the drugs effective
in treating the illness are also known to
interfere with dopamine's action on nerve
cells. This view is supported by post-
mortem studies of brain tissue which have
shown that there are more dopamine-
 sensitive sites on the surfaces of cells taken
from schizophrenics than are found in
normal brains. Dopamine is not the only
transmitter affected by the disease. More
recently reductions in two other brain
peptides, cholecystokinin and somatostatin
have also been described in the brain tissue
of schizophrenics.
   These chemical studies have now been
complemented by the use of brain scan-
ners. Some of these computerised instru-
ments can reconstruct three-dimensional
X-ray images of the living brain, while
others, in conjunction with the use of
radioactive tracers, can map its metabolic
activity. In both respects the schizophrenic
brain appears to be abnormal. The fluid-
filled spaces or ventricles appear to be
enlarged, and the blood flow to the front of
the brain is reduced. Far from being a
"disease of the mind", as was once
supposed, schizophrenia can now be
regarded as an "organic" disorder similar in
many   respects   to   Parkinson's      and
Alzheimer's diseases, in which pathological
changes and abnormalities are more easily
identifiable.
   So what is the "cause" of schizophrenia?
During the past 50 years numerous studies
have shown that the relatives of schizo-
phrenics have a higher than expected like-
lihood of contracting the disease.  This
genetic influence is most clearly seen in the
case of identical (monozygotic) twins in
which at least one of the pair suffers from
the disease. The key to these statistics is the
  "concordance rate", the proportion of
  twins in which both individuals suffer from
  the illness.  If there were no genetic
  susceptibility then the incidence of schizo-
phrenia in the second twin would be
expected to be the same as in the general
population. Instead, the concordance rate
has been found to lie between 35 and 58 per
cent. In the case of fraternal (dizygotic)
twins it is also relatively high--estimates
range from 9 to 26 per cent. However, the
fact that the figure for identical twins is not
100 per cent makes it clear that schizo-
phrenia is not a simple inherited metabolic
disorder. In the <1Lancet>1 paper, Crow takes a
close look at this and other anomalies in the
genetic data.

  For example, brothers and sisters who
differ in age share genes to the same extent
as dizygotic twins, and so in a purely
genetic disease would be expected to have
the same concordance rates--but they do
not. Twins are far more likely to share the
disease than siblings of different ages. In
addition, the likelihood of concordance is
far greater in twins (or sibling pairs) of the
same sex. Another clue comes from a paper
by the Japanese psychiatrist Abe who has
shown that the second twin is far more
likely to develop the disease if they are
living with an affected twin around the
time of onset, as compared to the concor-
dance rates for twins who are living apart.
Taken together, these facts suggest that a
genetically susceptible individual must be
exposed to some envionmental factor in
order to succumb to the disease. This
would explain why children of the same
genetics, age and sex, living in the same
house are more likely to both contract the
illness than any of the other combinations
studied.

  Could this environmental factor be a
virus? Crow points out that some forms
of virus infection can be accompanied
by schizophrenic symptoms.  The con-
cordance patterns for schizophrenia are
very similar to those in other diseases, such
as polio and tuberculosis, in which the
genetic and environmental factors are well
established. And like many viral diseases,
schizophrenia seems to be seasonally
related, with the majority of hospital
admissions occurring in early summer.

  The evidence marshalled by Crow is
strong, but as yet inconclusive. The identi-
fication of viruses affecting brain tissue is
notoriously difficult, but this is perhaps one
of the most obvious strategies for future
research.  In addition, application of
recombinant DNA techniques could be
used to isolate and characterise some of the
genes associated with schizophrenia, as is
being done currently with the muscular
dystrophies and Huntington's chorea. As
soon as the genetic component of schizo-
phrenia is understood the search for the
elusive environmental factor can begin in
earnest.                                 []
                      <2Another coffee for the road?>2

WHY Do we drink coffee? one answer
is to keep us interested in what we are
doing at the time--typing, say, or repairing
a car. What makes coffee such an effective
stimulant  is  not  entirely
clear. Caffeine is the most
popular candidate, affecting
the brain's adenosine recep-
tors (Nature vol 301, p195);
but Australian researchers
have discovered something in
coffee    that   acts    like
morphine. This could even be
the  reason    why  drinking
coffee is so addictive.
   Working at Prince Henry's
Hospital in Melbourne, J. H.
Boublik and colleagues found
that instant coffee powder
(both the normal and decaffeinated
versions) contained something that specifi-
cally-  bound to brain opiate receptors.
Whatever this substance X was,
displaced both naloxone (a synthetic
morphine substitute) and enkephalin
analogues (enkephalins are the body's own
morphine--like substances.  That is, it
showed the classic behaviour of a genuine
"opioid". It was found in fresh and instant
coffee alike, but not in tea, cocoa, soup,

yoghurt or cheese! <1(Nature,>1 vol 301, p246).
   Various chemical tests showed that X
was not caffeine or morphine, being a much
larger molecule. It dissolved in ether, and
               seemed      resistant      to
               proteolytic digestion; this
               implies that it may be an
               alkaloid    like   morphine,
               rather than a peptide like the
               enkephalins. It is uncertain
               whether the coffee plant
               manufactures this chemical
               for its own mysterious
               purpose, or whether it is
               made as an accidental by-
               product of the roasting
               process (the smell of coffee
               originates from the latter
               source).
    The oddest thing about X is that like
naloxone, it <1blocks>1 the opiate receptor; this
is opposite from morphine and the
enkephalins.   There is quite a lot of X in
coffee--probably' enough to affect directly
our own enkephalin receptors--but whether
it is the major stimulant remains to be seen.
  Its affinity for the opiate receptor means,
  however, that it could be addictive in the
  same way as morphine. Coffee drinkers,
  have an excuse at last!        []
                       <2Night--shift spiders warn birds of their webs>2

MOST spiders weave webs that are all
       but invisible, but some species
include a very conspicuous broad band of
silk across the middle of the web. Arach-
nologists have long been puzzled by these
patches. The old theory was that they some-
how made the web stronger mechanically, a
belief reflected in the name stabilimentum.
Now, after experiment rather than specu-
lation, it seems that stabilimenta are really
early warning landmarks for birds.
   Tom Eisner and Stephen Nowicki, of
Cornell University, noticed that the spiders
that use stabilimenta build long-lived webs
that can stay up for several days. Webs
without stabilimenta are more delicate; the
spider tends to build at night and take the
web down before dawn, recycling the silk
next evening. This suggested to Eisner and
Nowicki that the stabilimentum might be a
visual marker, warning birds of the web's
presence. This would be of obvious benefit
to the spider, whose web would last longer,
but it would also help the bird to avoid
getting dirtied by sticky spider silk.
   To test the theory, Eisner and Nowicki
compared webs with and without artificial
stabilimenta.  They found night-spinning
spiders and waited until about 2 am, when
the webs were finished, before removing
the spiders. Then they marked half the
webs with artificial stabilimenta and came

  back at two-hourly intervals to check on
  the longevity of the webs. During the dark
the two sorts of web lasted equally well, but
once dawn had broken the difference

became clear. By noon more than 60 per
cent of the webs with stabilimenta were still
intact, while only 8 per cent of the
unmarked webs had survived.
   To check that it was indeed the visual
marking that preserved the webs, rather
than any mechanical strengthening, Eisner
and Nowicki had one set of webs in which
they suspended the stabilimentum with
black threads next to, but not touching, the
web. There was no difference in longevity
between these and the more conventionally
marked webs.
   Further evidence comes from an actual
encounter between bird and web. During 7 1/2
hours of observation, the biologists saw one
collision between a rufous-sided towhee
and a web. The bird faltered momentarily.
The web was utterly destroyed.
   Birds aren't the only problem for spiders.
Large mammals too might be warned of the
webs, but so might prey.  Eisner and
Nowicki suggest that the occasional missed
meal is more than adequately compensated
for by the preservation of the web. They
also make the point that the one spider that
makes daytime webs without stabilimenta,
<1Nephila clavpes,>1 has bright yellow silk,
which, they say, makes the web
conspicuous enough without the need for
resorting to additional warning markers.
<1(Science,>1 vol 219, p 185).                []
                                  <2Multiple sclerosis therapy is under pressure>2

MULTIPLE sclerosis--a mysterious
deterioration of the central nervous
system--has long eluded attempts to find a
cure. But an effective treatment may be
near at hand. Breathing oxygen at twice
normal atmospheric pressure can help
chronic sufferers, researchers at New York
University find <1(New England Journal of>1
<1Medicine,>1 vol 308, p 181).
   Forty patients with advanced multiple
sclerosis received either pure oxygen or a
mixture of 10 per cent oxygen in nitrogen,
for 90 minutes a day. After 20 sessions, 70
per cent of those breathing pure oxygen
tired less easily and became more mobile
and co-ordinated. Only 5 per cent of the
control group, breathing oxygen and
nitrogen, showed any improvement. Minor
ear problems and reversible short-
sightedness were the only observed side
effects of the treatment, but caution is
needed. Hypoxia has been known to induce
seizures and transient blindness.

   Unfortunately improvement was short-
lived, lasting only a few weeks in those with
more severe forms of the disease. But a few
patients remained healthier a year later.
     A paper by Dr Philip James of the
University of Dundee published by the
<1Lancet>1 last year amplifies an idea first
suggested in the 1930s that the disease may
be due to the blockage of blood vessels of
the nervous system by fat globules <1(Lancet,>1
1982, vol 1, p 380). This idea evolved after
scientists recognisd the similarity of
damage to the brain and spinal cord seen in
   divers and in sufferers of multiple sclerosis.
   The lodging of fat globules in capillaries
damages the veins. The resulting leakage of

plasma from veins is a recognised feature of
multiple sclerosis and is know to cause
shedding of the fatty covering of nerve
fibres (the myelin sheath).  Computed
tomography indicates that vascular events
can precede the symptoms of multiple
sclerosis and that death of nerve fibres
occurs considerably later.

  Boguslav Fischer and his co-workers at
the New York University Medical Centre
suspect that the hyperbaric oxygen treat-
ment may work by improving oxygen
supply to small veins associated with
damaged nerves, leading to improved
conductivity in those nerves still func-
tioning.  The longer-lasting remissions
experienced by patients with relatively mild
symptoms suggests that an enhanced
oxygen supply may even be able to
stimulate some kinds of repair, perhaps
re-myelination of damaged nerves.
   Hyperbaric-oxygen treatment is also
known to suppress the immune systems in
experimental animals, and researchers
suspect that multiple sclerosis may be an
autoimmune disease related to a viral infec-
tion. A team of Boston scientists led by
Stephen Hauser report, in the same issue of
the <1New England Journal of Medicine,>1 that
a combination of immunosuppressive
drugs can halt the progress of the disease in
patients with advanced progressive
multiple sclerosis (vol 308,
p 173). Unfortunately one of the
drugs--cyclophosphamide, administered
with ACTH--has been linked with bladder
cancer and leukaemia, so this treatment
remains a last resort for victims of multiple
sclerosis.                                []
<2Slow walkers may be slow learners>2

SLOW walkers are slow learners? An old
wives' tale? Not according to Phil silva,
Rob McGee and sheila Williams of the
University of Otago Medical School in New
Zealand <1(British Journal of Disorders of>1
<1Communication,>1 vol 17, p 133).
   As part of a long term study of child
development these workers assessed 954
seven-year-olds of an original sample of
1037 children born between 1 April, 1972
and 31 March, 1973 in the city of Dunedin,
New Zealand.
   They measured the IQ of these children
using the Weschler Intelligence Scale for
Children and assessed reading ability using
the Burt Re-arranged Word Reading Test.
Scores on these tests were compared with a
mother's record of when her baby first
walked and talked. Babies walking later
than 18 months were categorised as slow
walkers; those talking later than 24 months
were classified as slow talkers. 9.3 per cent

of their seven-year-olds were slow walkers,
talkers or both.
   Children who were slow to walk or slow
to walk <1and>1 talk had significantly lower IQ
scores and experienced greater reading
difficulties than those who were not
delayed in walking or talking. In fact, 66.7
per cent of children with delayed walking
and talking had low IQ scores (less than 89
points--the average score is 100 points) and
reading difficulties (reading age of less than
six years of age). This compares with 3 per
cent in normal children. Surprisingly, slow
talking on its own was not associated with
later reading difficulties or low intelligence.
Only 2.4 per cent slow talkers experienced
later problems.
   The Dunedin group hope to use slow
walking to identify problem babies. Early
intervention could prevent some of the
problems and costs of special education
that occur in later life.                  []


                                  <2The mathematics of hallucination>2

IN THE 1960s a mystique surrounded
hallucinogenic drugs like LSD because
they seemed to enable users to alter their
perceptions of reality, and explore their
"inner minds". Jack Cowan, working at
the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, California, thinks that at least
part of the hallucinogenic experience may
result from an instability of neural activity
in the visual cortex. He has devised a model
based on the mathematics of fluid dynam-
ics, that attempts to explain the genesis of
simple geometric patterns seen during the
early stages of drug-induced hallucinations
<1(International Journal of Quantum Chem->1
<1istry,>1 vol 22, p 1059).
   At the beginning of a drug-induced hallu-
cination the subject often sees simple,
coloured, geometric patterns.  These fall
into one or more of four basic forms:
grating or network, tunnel or funnel, spiral,
and cobweb.  The hallucinations move
independently of the eyes, suggesting that
the patterns are generated in the visual
cortex of the brain rather than on the
retina.
   The visual cortex consists of tightly-
packed columns of cells, each column
corresponding to a particular point in the
visual field in a way that can be mathe-
matically defined. Using the mathematics
of "map" the four basic hallucinatory
patterns onto the visual cortex gives quite
surprising results.  Tunnel and spiral
patterns transform into parallel lines or
stripes of neural activity; lattice and
cobweb hallucinations transform into regu-
lar networks, or lattices.
  Cowan was struck by the similarity
between these patterns and those seen in
the fluid convection under certain condi-
tions. If a layer of liquid is heated
uniformly from below, a temperature
gradient is established between the top and
the bottom of the layer. When the
temperature gradient exceeds a critical
value, convection currents start--the liquid
all wants to rise to the top of the layer, but
some must fall to the bottom. The situation
is unstable. To resolve this instability regu-
lar patterns of rising and falling liquid can
be set up. Cowan reasoned that the patterns
in the visual cortex might be the result of an
analogous instability in the neural activity.
   Cells close together in the cortex are
likely to have a number of inter-
connections whereas cells farther apart may
have few or none. The level of activity in
cortical cells varies, and their ability to
excite other cells varies accordingly. When
the excitatory interaction is weak, only cells
close to a stimulated cell will be excited;
when it is strong, cells over a wide area
are excited.  Some interconnections are
inhibitory, and varying the strength of the
inhibitory interaction works similarly.

   Inhibitory interconnections are very
important for preserving stability in neural
activity. Cowan believes that a phenom-
enon known as <1lateral inhibition>1 is
responsible for the patterns generated by
hallucinogens.  Lateral inhibition means
that one cell's excitation inhibits its close
neighbours. The best known example of the
phenomenon is in cells of the retina, where
its effect is to heighten contrast.
   Cowan suggests that the strength of the
excitatory interactions increases relative to
that of the inhibitory interactions under the
influence of the drug. When one cell is
excited, it inhibits those close by, but
excites a large number of distant cells.
These in turn inhibit some adjacent cells
but excite others further away, and so on.
The normal stabilising mechanisms are out
of control and the whole cortex becomes
involved. However, because there is still
some inhibition the neural activity stabilises
as adjacent areas of excited and inhibited
cells. The solution to this problem, like that
of the boiling liquid, is found in the
formation of regular patterns.
   Cowan set up a mathematical equation
that represented the neural activity, and
built lateral inhibition into it. He then
varied the ratio of excitatory to inhibitory
interaction strengths.  When the ratio
strayed above a certain value the cortical
activity became unstable and patterns were
formed. Depending on the exact value of
the ratio, the model produced stripes or
lattices. He concluded that his theory could
account for the hallucinations.
   Does all this have any foundation in
physiology?  Cowan thinks it does.  He
estimated the separation between the
stripes of excited neurones from reported
hallucinations to be 2 millimetres. This
corresponds to the spacing between "hyper-
columns" in the visual cortex, identified by
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel. These
hypercolumns are blocks of cells that signal
local properties of visual objects (such as
orientation) in their particular areas of the
visual field. He suggests that hypercolumns
are coupled together by excitatory fibres.
The stripes are produced by excitation in
adjacent rows of hypercolumns. He also
concludes that the dominant interaction
<1within>1 each hypercolumn is inhibitory.
   Cells do exist that can influence the
excitability of the cortical neurones, in the
locus coeruleus and the raphe nucleus,
deep within the brain. Both act to decrease
the excitability of the neurones. Cowan
says it is possible that the hallucinogens act
by depressing one of these groups of cells.
  Cowan makes a number of approxi-
mations in order to make his theory
manageable.  Whether it is an accurate
account of the genesis of these hallu-
cinations remains to be seen. However, it is
a remarkable piece of interdisciplinary
thinking, linking fields as diverse as fluid
dynamics and neurophysiology.          []


                        <2Wholly amazing discovery>2
IT IS POSSIBLE to reduce the amount
of salt people consume by making the
hole in the salt shaker smaller and placing
the shaker out of reach. This
dramatic conclusion has been
reached by a team of Austra-
lian scientists after a study
supported by a grant from
McDonald's Family Restau-
rants, and the results are
reported in detail in <1Nature>1
(vol 301, P 331).
  The motivation behind this
research, carried out by H.
Greenfield, J. Maples and R.
B. H. Wills,  of the School of Food Tech-
nology, University of New South Wales, is
the recent concern in the medical profession
that too much salt in the diet may be one
cause of the high incidence of hypertension
among people in the developed countries.
The techniques used by the team depended
on cunning placing of salt shakers, iden-

tical except for hole size, in a public
cafeteria and on Quantas (sic) aircraft, with
shakers weighed before and after use. Less
              than a quarter of the people
              observed using the shakers
              tasted their food before
              adding salt, suggesting that
              the salt-shaking habit is not
              related to the taste of the food
              and is essentially a ritual
              activity. So, the smaller the
              hole the less salt used in the
              ritual--with one caution. The
              "optimum" hole size is
              around 3 sq mm, say the
Australians,  because "with smaller hole
sizes some consumers attempted to make
the hole larger with sharp implements such
as forks". But it is possible to reduce salt
consumption further by "placing the salt
shaker at some distance from the table".
  Next week we will have a report for
grandmothers on how to suck eggs. []
<2TECHNOLOGY>2
<2Britain re-arms for the 1990s>2

BRITAIN's Ministry of Defence is
speeding up plans to buy new ships,

radars and weapons. The ministry
bought several major items of new equip-
ment "off the shelf" during and immedi-
ately after the Falklands war. Now it has
launched a series of competitions to select
the best ways of filling the gaps in Britain's
armoury.
   Last December the Royal Navy ordered
the first two Type 22 frigates of a new
design, with much heavier armament than
design, predecessors. The present Type 22s,
such as HMS Broadsword and Brilliant,
which shot down several Argen-

tinian aircraft with Seawolf
missiles, have long been criti-
cised for their puny armament.
Although the Type 22 frigate is
substantially longer than a Type
42 destroyer, it carries neither
the sea Dart long-range anti-
aircraft missile nor the Vickers
Mk 8 gun.
   The new Type 22s, ordered to
replace the sunken Type 42s and
Type 21 frigates, will carry the
Vickers   gun.   During   the
Falklands war, this type of
weapon fired several thousand
of its 114 mm-calibre shells with
pinpoint    accuracy    against
enemy land forces. The crew of
the  Type   21   frigate  HMS
Avenger also claims to have shot
down an Exocet with one.
   The new ships will carry a
lightweight version of the
seawolf, using new radars that Marconi is
developing. They will also be armed with
eight new anti-ship missiles, compared with
four Exocets on their predecessors. The
Royal Navy is evaluating at least four types
of missile for this role. These include a
version of the Sea Eagle, which British
Aerospace is developing to arm RAF
Tornado aircraft and Royal Navy sea
Harriers; the MM.40 long-range variant of
Exocet; the McDonnell Douglas Harpoon
from the US; and the Franco-Italian
Otomat. All these apart from MM.40 have
a range of about 100 km, compared with 40
km for the basic Exocet.
   Present Type 22s carry small Bofors
guns. The new ships will have two sets of
rapid-fire radar-controlled multi-barrel
guns  to   shoot  down   missiles.  The
contenders for this order comprise
Seaguard, made by Contraves in Switzer-
land; Goalkeeper, with Dutch radars and
an American gun; VM30, with the same
gun but British radars and computers; and
an improved version of the American
Phalanx that the Royal Navy hastily
bought last summer to equip its new
aircraft carrier, HMS Illustrious.
   The Royal Navy is also running a
competition to select a new radar for its
surviving Type 42 destroyers, Type 21 frig-
ates, its aircraft carriers and the planned
Type 23 frigates. Last month four com-
panies, Plessey, Marconi, MEL and Thorn
EMI, put in bids for the radar. This "Type
996" will replace the 1950s-vintage Type
992, which suffered from a number of defi-
ciencies in the Falklands.  Rough seas
reflect radar signals, producing false echoes
which can blind an old radar such as the
Type 992. The Type 996, though, will be
able to spot incoming anti-ship missiles
such as Exocet in time for the vesel to
defend itself.
   MEL is part of the Philips group, and its
contender is heavily based on a radar
known as Smart which another Philips
company is developing in Holland for the
Dutch Navy. Although MEL in Britain
would build about 70 per cent of any such
radars that the Royal Navy ordered, the
other British firms are worried that
expertise would be lost if an overseas design
won.
   The RAF will also receive new weapons
to plug the gaps the Falklands war exposed.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has
awarded Hunting Engineering a contract to
complete the development of the JP233
runway destroyer. In the RAF's first attack
on the runway at Port stanley, carried out
by a Vulcan V-bomber which flew from
Ascension Island, only one of the 21 bombs
dropped hit the runway. Repeated attacks
by Sea Harriers, with conventional 450-kg
bombs, were no more effective.
  The Tornado strike aircraft, now coming
into service with the RAF, will carry two
JP233 pods under its fuselage.  These
contain two types of "munition", which
eject as the aircraft flies low and fast over
the runway. One type of munition blows a
hole in the concrete surface, and the other
parachutes down to hamper repair oper-
ations. When a bulldozer or other vehicle
           touches the bomb it explodes.
             Another project that the
           ministry has suddenly acceler-
           ated after two years of inaction is
           a new missile designed to
           destroy enemy radars. Since the
           beginning of December, experts
           have been studying a brand-new
           missile called Alarm from
           British Aerospace, and the
           American equivalent known as
           Harm.  Lucas Aerospace has
           teamed up with Harm's US
           manufacturer, and would get
           half of the work on any Harms
           ordered for the RAF.
             The Royal Air Force wants up
           to 2000 rounds of whichever
           type the ministry selects. Each
           missile has a small radar receiver
           in its nose. This detects signals
           from radars on the ground that
           may be aiming missiles or guns
           at the approaching aircraft. The
Tornado would launch a Harm or Alarm at
a safe distance. The missile steers toward
the source of the signals, and explodes
when it is close enough to destroy the radar.
   During the Falklands war, the RAF had
to buy anti-radar missiles from the US. But
many did not operate correctly. The MoD
expects to select the new missile design this
spring, but the weapon will not be in service
until 1986 or 1987. It will complete an
impressive array of hardware--ready, for
the next war. []
                   <2Key page 652 for a happy ending>2

IF YOU LIVE in the south of England and
own a Prestel viewdata set, keep your
control panel handy at 7 pm next Monday.
As <1New Scientist>1 revealed two weeks ago
(27 January, p 217) you will have the chance
to vote on how you want a love story to
end. You could also win a new dress--or
have your comments about TVS's show
<1The Real World>1 typed up live on screen.
   The makers of <1The Real World>1 have
dreamed up a box of stunts to demonstrate
the potential of what they call "viewer-
reactive television". But the programme's
producer, Peter Kinkead, says it is more
than a gimmick--despite the fact that there
are only about 5500 Prestel sets in TVs's
catchment area. "There are I million home
computers in the country which could be
adapted for Prestel . . . there is the potential
of a quantum leap in Prestel usage.

   The programme will demonstrate
Prestel's potential for banking, shopping
and retrieving information. One highlight
will be the "fashion show of the future".
The first viewer to select an outfit from the
parade will receive it free the next day
(Kinkead claims it is a uni-sex, uni-size
garment). And viewers who want to tell
TVS what they think of the idea can send
messages via the Prestel Mailbox service. A
selection of these will flash up on screen
during the half-hour programme.
   But according to Kinkead, the highligh:
should be the love story. Viewers will see
the first, pre-recorded, scenes, then a freeze-
frame that will ask them how they want the
story to end. Live actors will then take over,
according to the wishes of the Prestel-
owning democracy, If you want to know
more read Prestel page 652.             []


                       <2Superconducting highway to low--noise chips>2

A RESEARCHER with IBM has come
up with a device that might possibly
replace the transistor in integrated circuit
devices. The catch is that it operates only at
temperatures just above absolute zero.
Nevertheless Sadig Faris, of the
Thomas J.  Watson Research
Center at Yorktown Heights,
New York, believes that its other
properties could make it
sufficiently attractive to provide
the necessary cooling.
   The new device, called a quit-
eron, exploits the strange prop-
erties that some substances
develop at very low tem-
peratures. As they are cooled
through a critical temperature,
they suddenly become "super-
conductors", with no electrical
resistance.
   Semiconductors rely on gaps
between    the   characteristic
energy levels of electrons in the
material; while these remaln
large, currents cannot flow. But the gaps
can be overcome by applying an external
voltage, which helps the electrons to jump
the gap, allowing current to flow. The quit-
eron works in a similar way, although the
energy gaps involved are about a thousand
time smaller than for semiconductors--
several milli-electronvolts (take out the
word electron to arrive at the correspond-
ing driving voltages), This difference is
behind the quiteron's big advantage: it
dissipates far less power than the
conventional device.
  A chip built with quiterons would need
to lose far less heat than a conventional
one, so the devices could be more closely
packed on a chip. Also its signals would
contain a lot less noise, particularly
important in measuring and handling very
weak signals.  Low-noise amplifiers for
radio astronomers could well be one of the
quiteron's first applications.
   The quiteron work consists of three
layers of superconductor (see diagram). In
one experimental version. S1 and S2 are
niobium,   and S3 is a lead-indium-gold
alloy. Niobium oxide and silicon monoxide
insulators separate the three areas.
  The superconducting gap in S2 is
suppressed by knocking the material out of

its superconducting state. This could be
done by heating it (although it would be
difficult to avoid heating the other layers as
well), but the layer reacts more quickly if an
applied voltage between sl and s2 rapidly
increases the power density inside the
material. This state of "nonequilibrium"
(straight heating would have kept the
system     in   equilibrium)   lowers   the
resistance of the junction layer between S2
and S3, and a substantial current flows
where little current flowed before. Thus the
quiteron acts as an amplifier or a switch,
just as a conventional semiconductor
might.
  The quiteron is not the first super-
           conducting     device     that
           engineers have considered for
           chips. The Josephson junction,
           based on superconducting
           effects described and explained
           in work for which Cambridge
           physicist Brian Josephson won a
           Nobel prize in 1973, is also the
           subject of much research. But
           Faris thinks that the quiteron
           may be more useful. One reason
           is that it is a three-terminal
           device, which can act as an
           amplifier or switch on its own.
           Because the Josephson junction
           has only two terminals--going in
           and coming out, like a diode--it
           would have to form part of a
           more complex circuit.
              Faris claims that unlike the
Josephson junction, the quiteron is insen-
sitive to stray magnetic fields, and returns
to equilibrium automatically when the
external excitation is turned off. Another
big plus is that its two separate states are
very different--it is easy for other devices to
detect which "state" a quiteron switch is in.
The switching speed looks good too. Faris is
sure that it is lower than 300 picoseconds,
although he does not have the equipment
to prove his prediction that it is less than 50
picoseconds (10<s-12>s seconds). Transistors,
however,   have a lower limit of 20 pico-
seconds.
   The size of the device--which Faris
expects to be able to scale down to 0.1
micrometres across--makes it suitable for
use in very and ultra-large scale integrated
circuits. The low heat dissipation will also
help, because the device can be packed
more densely on the chip.
   Faris thinks the quiteron could compete
with semiconductor transistors, but the
catch may be the cost--which IBM will not
reveal at this stage.                      []
                                <2Robot taps wells that other drills cannot reach>2

THE OIL-DRILLING business is in for
a shake-up if a new drill that will be
tested this month at an abandoned well
near San Francisco is successful.  The
people who designed the drill
say it is capable of drilling for oil
in almost any direction, and will
penetrate deposits that today's
drills cannot reach.
   The advantage of the device,
called the "Robot Drill" is that it
can bore through rock at angles
above 60o to vertical--which is
the limit that existing so-called
reach drilling can manage. Also,
operators at the surface can reel
in the drill like a fishing line, and
replace the bit in one tenth the
time it takes with conventional
systems.
   The Robot Drill works by
gripping the sides of its own
hole, and anchoring itself until
the bit has made space in which

  it can move on. It can drill around corners,
  sideways, in a curve, and even uphill.
    The bit anchors itself in one of two ways.
  Either hydraulic "bladders" or hydraulic
             pistons expand to grip the sides
             of the well, then retract so the bit
             can advance. Whichever device
             is used depends on the con-
             ditions--the bladder is more
             suitable for soft rock.
               Recent advances in sensing
             devices, which tell the operators
             what the drill is doing under-
             ground, have made the Robot
             Drill possible. It was the brain-
             child of Robert Horstmeyer, a
             graduate of Stanford University
             in California. Horstmeyer built
             and tested a working model of
             the drill at Stanford, and in
             return gave the university stock
             in his company, Advanced
             Drilling.
             Horstmeyer says that oil dril-

ling is tied to an 80-year-old principle of
brute force--adding weight to rotary drills
and using the force of gravity. The methods
have been refined over the years, but not
radically changed.
  The inventor wants to recover oil from
abandoned wells which rotary drills cannot
reach. Reaching these wells will involve
linking the drill to sophisticated sensing
devices which can detect oil-bearing
formations.
   Horstmeyer has raised $200 000 from 32
investors, all with connections in the oil
industry, to launch Advanced Drilling. He
expects to raise more money from a small
corporations which will pay for 12 months
research and development work at the
abandoned well.
   If the drill is a success, it could reduce the
numbers of offshore rigs needed for drill-
ing at sea. It could also find applications in
coal mining, geothermal wells, and for pipe
conduits under roads, where it is not prac-
tical to drill straight down.              []
                            <2State adviser banks on new technology>2
ONE OF the Department of Industry's
top scientists is leaving to advise
Barclays Bank on investing in new tech-
nology. Colin Hicks, the technical assistant
to Oscar Roith, the department's chief
scientist and engineer, will join a "high
technology" unit at Barclays to identity
areas in which the bank can lend money.
    Hicks, whose salary at the bank will be
paid by the department, will rejoin the civil
service after 18 months. He says he hopes

to gain "a different branch of experience
through getting an insight into the financial
world". Hicks, 36, started his career in
chemistry research. "I think that the banks
have been a little frightened of new tech-
nologies. Anything that I can do to point
out that technology is not so high-risk as
many think will be in the UK's interests."
   The new recruit will increase to six the
people in Barclays' unit. Nick Moore, the
team's leader, is a banker who previously
spent two years on secondment to the
    Department of Industry. Moore says that
    the bank has developed a general policy
 that loans to small, high-technology firms
 can provide a good source of business. One
of the main jobs of the unit is to advise
branch managers about technical projects
that are worth backing.
       According to Moore, banks have never
  been particularly reluctant to back high-
    technology ventures. "What we are doing
 now is to make it a lot easier for a person
 with a good idea to get financial support."
     One result of Barclays's policy is the
number of high-technology firms to which
it is lending money under what it calls its
business start loan scheme. Through this,
  the bank lends cash to small enterprises,
 who repay the loans in the form ofa levy on
 what it sells. Barclays defines as "high tech"
 46 of the 371 businesses it supports through
the scheme.
         Another British bank, the National
Westminster, is also planning to cash in on
  science and technology. It has drawn up a
 list of some 30 technical consultants, with
   interests ranging from marine science to
    energy, which the bank will call in for
 advice on esoteric projects that it is asked to
fund.
   Names on the list include the Production
Engineering Research Association, Cran-
field Institute of Technology and the
University of Manchester Institute of
Science and Technology. The one stum-
bling block is that people who come to the
bank for loans have to pay half the consul-
tant's fee--which could come to several
hundred pounds.  Barclays provides its
services for free.                       []


<2One--armed rotor>2

AT FIRST sight, this wind turbine in
West Germany (below) appears to be
missing a rotor blade. But the scientists
who designed it, at the University of
Stuttgart, believe the single-bladed rotor


will power wind turbines of the future.
   Wind power enthusiasts claim that a big
advantage over solar power is that it is not
necessary to cover the whole of the
"harvest area". The actual hardware, the
turbine blades, covers only 2.3 per cent of
the area exposed to the wind. But exposing
a large, slender structure to the elements
creates problems. When the wind gusts,
rotors need either to flex or be very strong.
   Professor Franz Wortmann, of the insti-
tute of aerodynamics at Stuttgart, believes
that a single-bladed rotor can solve some of
the problems. He has built a test tower,
with an eight-metre diameter rotor, to
prove it. "We started from the point of
making the mass as low as possible," Wort-
mann says, "We found that by avoiding the
turbulence of two rotors, we were able to
achieve a rotor speed of 450 kilometres per
hour at the tip--the fastest in the world."
   The next step will be to build a bigger
turbine, with a span of 50 metres. This may
require new materials--the experimental
rotor is built of wood, which Wortmann
says has the best damping.              []


                            <2Graphic example of ideologically--sound computing>2
IN the past few years. the cooperative
movement in Britain has gained more
of a reputation for shoring up outdated
technologies than for pioneering new ones.
But the success of a small co-op in London
called Computercraft could soon be
changing all that.
   Three and a half years ago, six computer
programmers gave up their regular jobs to
form Computercraft. Their idea was to set
up a cooperative to supply computer skills
to voluntary groups and other co-ops, and
to develop new software for the purpose.
Most importantly, they wanted to prove
that a cooperative venture could compete
on the open market with conventional
firms--while turning down work that did
not fit its principles.
   If Computercraft achieves its target of a
#200 000 turnover this year (so far it has
doubled every year), it will be well on the
way to proving that its ideas work. It will
also have learned a few lessons in how not
to go about setting up a business.
   The first lesson was not to run before you
can walk. "It was a mistake to try to go too
fast," says one of the founders, Richard
Collings. "We all gave up our jobs, so right
away we had six wages to pay. This lead to
tensions and conflicts."
   Another lesson Computercraft learned
was to sort out the politics before getting
started.
   But when the business started rolling in,
there was less time for arguments. One of

the co-op's big successes was designing the
software for a computer graphics system
called the Bit Stik. The Bit Stik itself is a
hand-held joystick control, which links up
with an Apple II microcomputer. It was the
invention of a team of plastics engineers
and graphics designers, who formed a com-
pany called Robocom. At the end of 1981,
Robocom commissioned Computercraft to
write the software for the Bit Stik. It was on
the market six months later. The strength
of the system is it
allows someone with
no knowledge what-
ever of computers to
draw     high-quality
graphics     on     a
comparatively low-
powered       micro-
computer.
    It sidesteps the
  usual limitations of
  screen resolution by a
  powerful     "zoom"
        mode which enables
  the operator to enter
  fine detail, then to
  shrink it until it
  becomes     virtually
  invisible. This means
  that     the     only
  limitation in detail is
  the type of disc stor-
  age available.
    Projects such as the

  Bit Stik have enabled Computercraft to
  carry out more idealistic projects--while
  paying realistic wages to the members. The
  group's philosophy is that computers
  should increase, rather than decrease,
  workers' participation in industry, For ex-
  ample, large cooperatives could install a
  computer in canteens, on which workers
  could experiment with different ways of
  management, or discover various implica-
  tions of increasing wages, for example.  []


<2PATENTS>2


<2State secret>2

FEARS that the Trademarks
Registry might be moved out
of London have been allayed.
Instead it is leaving the Patent
Office's building in Chancery
Lane for twelfth and thirteenth
floors of state House in High
Holborn.
  While the move will reassure
metropolitan-minded trade-
mark agents--who feared they
might have ended up dealing
with an office in Wales--it will
create some problems.
  State House already houses a
recruiting office for the Royal
Navy and Marines, and visitors
must apply for a temporary
security pass at the ground floor
entrance. The registry says these
passes will be "readily
available"--which is obviously
incompatible with military
security.  And the agents are
likely to rebel against time-
wasting vetting every time they
go to work.                   []


<2Timely turn-off>2

ROBERT FRANKLIN of
Los Gatos, California, has
come up with a neat way of en-
suring that electric gadgets such
as irons and hair curlers turn
themselves off when left un-
attended.  This would save
energy and cut down the risk of
fires.

  PCT application 82/03520
explains how an automatic shut-
off unit can either be built into a
domestic appliance or installed
as an add-on unit to existing
equipment.
   The user pre-sets the timer to
put a limit on how long the ap-
pliance may stay on while not in
use. A sensor in the appliance
detects motion or touch, and
starts the timer as soon as the
appliance is put down. It re-
sets the timer each time the
appliance is picked up.
   The timer sounds an audible
alarm when it is about to run
out, and switch off. If the user
wants to keep the appliance
switched on, he touches it to
trigger the sensor and reset the
timer. If the alarm gets no re-
sponse, the timer goes ahead and
switches off in the interest of
safety and economy. []


                   <2BP flies an alternative kite>2

OIL GIANT BP is looking
hard at alternative sources
of energy.  The company is
building    an    experimental
30-kilowatt solar power station
near Southampton, and has filed
a string of patents on an idea for
wind-assisted oil tankers.
   British patent application
2  098 946 outlines a plan for a
kite sail for ships, while 2098950
gives some details of how to
launch it in the air.
   The main sail is a vast kite
folded and packed in a tube like
a gun barrel on the ship's deck.
It is attached by a line to a much
smaller pilot kite, stored in a
compressed-air launcher along-
side.
   The launcher shoots out the
pilot kite, which opens, catches
the wind, and pulls out the main
kite. This then opens, and flies
high over the ship from the end
of a strong cable.
   BP suggests that, apart from
assisting oil tankers in long hauls
across the ocean, the kite could
be a useful platform for photo-
graphic or radar equipment. It
could also carry pollution mon-
itors, crop sprayers or tele-
communications equipment.
   The idea of the kite sail itself is
not new <1(New Scientist,>1 vol 88
p 700). Its proponents claim that
it has the advantage of func-
tioning at high altitudes, where
winds are strong and stable. It
would also be easy to take down
and stow in stormy weather.
Most importantly, it should be
cheaper than some grandiose
schemes being floated to bring
back the age of sail.           []

                          <2Hells briefcase>2
TAKESHI IMAI, of Sao
Paulo Brazil, has filed a
European application in
German on a unique form of
personal transport. Application
64 141 describes a miniature
motor cycle which folds down
into a briefcase.
   The driver lets the train take
the strain for the main journey.

   On arrival, he opens up the
briefcase to reveal his personal
transport. It looks rather like a
motorised version of a child's
two-wheeled    scooter,   with
upright handlebars.
   But instead of scooting, the
rider stands on two side plates,
while a small petrol engine
drives the rear wheel.         []
<2Perpetual folly>2

JOHANN SCHYMS of Man-
osque, France, may be in for
an expensive disappointment.
He has filed a PCT application
(82/04174) in 30 countries for
what is unashamedly a perpetual
motion machine.
  The old British patent laws
prohibited applications for per-
petual motion machines as un-
workable and a waste of Patent
Ofice time. Under current laws
there is no such prohibition.
  Schyns has re-invented the
old idea of a wheel with un-
balanced spokes. Twenty four
spokes slide over a fixed cam, so
that as they move they change
length and unbalance the wheel.
The result, says the inventor, is
that the wheel is permanently
out of balance and forced to
rotate.  So it produces usable
power for an electric generator,
without any input.
  Unfortunately, as with all
other perpetual motion mach-
ines, it will grind to a halt be-
cause of friction in the moving
parts. The inventor will then
find his very heavy investment
in patent filing fees wasted.  []

          <2Smokey blues>2

ANDREW BOETTNER of
California has filed a PCT
application on a gadget to make
life easier for singers in smokey
nightclubs.  It is a humidifier
clipped to the microphone.
  The device contains a carbon
dioxide cylinder which released
gas into a coiled chamber. A
wick supplies the chamber with
distilled water from a reservoir.
As the gas leaks out of the coiled
chamber it picks up water and
forms a mist around the singer's
head. It should last four hours,
the inventor claims.           []

<2Let your calculator do >2

<2the talking>2
A BRAZILIAN company has
filed an international (PCT)
application on a card calculator
which identifies its owner. It is a
security device for banking or
shopping by telephone.
  Application 82/04169, filed
by Shause sA, describes a modi-
fication of calculators that emit
different bleep tones when each
key is pressed. This one has
a pre-programmed sequence,
which corresponds to the
owner's individual code.
  To identify himself, the
shopper dials into the tele-
shopping system, and triggers
the card's memory by tapping
out his code number. The deco-
der at the other end converts the
sequence of beeps back into a
code which identifies the caller.
  Only the card's genuine
owner knows what sequence of
keys to press.                 []
<2Viruses, cancer and acute Infection>2

-----------------------------------------
Viruses attack cells by several distinct routes. The more we know of the details, the more

possible it becomes to control them

                                                           Andrew Scott

THE PROCESS of viral infection has been aptly
described as an act of hijack. Viruses invade animal,
plant and bacterial cells, and commandeer the complex
molecular machinery of the cell for their own uses--most
notably the rapid production and release of more viruses.
Many aspects of this biological piracy remain poorly under-
stood and research into the mysteries of viral infection is one
of the most active areas of study in the whole of biology. The
complexity of these "simplest" forms of life is sometimes
bewildering.
   To describe viruses in general terms is certainly simple
enough: they consist of a piece of genetic material (DNA or
RNA) encased within a protein coat. Sometimes the protein
coat is itself enclosed within a fatty membrane. The genetic
material may be as small as a single gene, while some protein
coats are made of multiple copies of only one specific protein
molecule. Other viruses have a complex structure in which
many different proteins are arranged in a highly ordered way
around a large piece of DNA or RNA.
   To trace the life cycles of these various types of virus is far
from easy. The paths that viruses pursue when they infect
begin to diverge as soon as they encounter the outside of the
cells they invade.
   Before a virus can infect an animal cell it must first bind to
specific receptor molecules embedded in the cell membrane.
The receptors are probably glycoproteins (proteins with
regions of carbohydrate attached) which perform some
important function in the normal activity of the cell. The
vital coat proteins have presumably evolved sites that will

bind to these glycoproteins, which then serve as the unwitting
doormen, allowing viruses to enter the cell.
   There is considerable debate about how viruses actually get
inside animal cells and the mechanism of entry probably
varies, depending on the type of virus and cell involved (see
figure p 374).  One idea is that viruses can simply pass
through the cell membrane, perhaps aided in some way by the
receptor protein (B<s1>s in Figure). But a lot of evidence suggests
that entry occurs by endocytosis--a well-documented process
by which cells take up material from their environment. The
cell membrane first of all folds inwards to form a deep pit
enclosing the virus (B<s2>s).
   Once the virus is completely surrounded the spherical pit
breaks off and reseals to leave the virus inside the cell but
enclosed within a membrane coat.

<2When two membranes touch>2
   A different mechanism has been suggested for those viruses
that are already enclosed within a membrane in their free-
living state. When two membranes touch one another they
can fuse into one, and fusion of the viral and cell membranes
in this way could allow the virus to enter <1(B<s3>s).>1
   Dr Kai Simons and his colleagues at the European Molec-
ular Biology Laboratory recently undertook a detailed study
of the entry of Semliki Forest virus (which can cause enceph-
alitis in mice) into animal cells. Simons claims that this work
provides the first reliable description of how an animal virus
enters the cell and initiates infection. It came up with a com-
plex route which involves both endocytosis and fusion.
   The process begins when the Semliki Forest virus, which is
enveloped in a membrane, enters the cell by endocytosis,
leaving the virus surrounded by a double membrane (B4). The
outer membrane of this double-membraned structure then
fuses with the membrane of a cell body called a lysosome.
Lysosomes contain enzymes which digest and modify mater-
ial brought into the cell by endocytosis. As shown in the
Figure, the virus escapes the action of these enzymes by
fusion between the viral and lysosomal membranes. This
releases free viruses into the cytoplasm of the cell.
   Simons' group has also demonstrated that several other
viruses, including influenza virus, also follow the entry path
used by the Semliki Forest virus. If this route proves to be
common to many animal viruses it might point to new ways
in which viral infections could be attacked with drugs.
   Viruses often seem to enter bacterial cells by a completely
different process in which the viral protein remains on the
outside of the bacterial membrane while the genetic material
is "injected" into the cell. Viruses get inside plant cells mainly
by direct entry at sites of cell damage, often caused by the
piercing mouthparts of insects and other animals that carry
the viruses.
   Once inside an animal, cell viruses usually disintegrate into
separated protein molecules and genetic material (C). Again,
the mechanism is unclear. It may be the spontaneous result of
exposing the virus to the general chemical environment ofthe
cell; or specific enzymes, either carried by the virus or present
in the cell, might catalyse the break-up.
   The act of piracy can then proceed; the viral proteins and
genes exploit the raw materials and enzymes of the cell to
manufacture more viruses. This process can follow many
complex and varied paths depending on the type of virus
involved, but, in general, two main tasks must be accom-
plished. The genetic information stored in the viral DNA or
RNA must be used to produce the viral proteins that it codes
for (D in Figure). Secondly, the viral genetic material must be
replicated many times to provide a copy for each new virus
particle (E).
   The genes of viruses can be either double or single strands
"DNA or RNA (See chart). This means that there are at least
four possible pathways of gene replication. Of course all the
paths are based on the assembly of complementary DNA or
RNA strands according to the familiar base-pairing rules of
James Watson and Francis Crick.
   The simplest viruses rely on the ezymes of the infected cell
to perform both protein synthesis and gene replication. Some
Parvoviruses (which can cause abnormal fetal development
and defects of growing tissues in rodents), for example, con-
tain only a single gene. This gene codes for a protein molecule
which later splits into the three proteins of the virus coat. The
enzymes of the infected cell copy the gene into messenger
RNA. The cells then use their own protein-synthesising ma-
chinery to translate the messenger RNA into the viral protein.
The infected cell enzymes also link together the nucleotide
building blocks of DNA into copies of the virus genetic mate-
rial, which are then packaged into the newly-made protein
coats and released from the cell. Each step in the viral life
cycle is catalysed by enzymes from the infected cell which
would normally be performing similar tasks in the life cycle
of the cell. This is the real subtlety of viral infection.

<2Viruses with enzymes>2
   At the other end of the scale are viruses which contain more
than 200 genes. These genes hold the information needed to
make many structural proteins and enzymes peculiar to the
virus. The enzymes are used to catalyse various steps in the
viral life cycle, including the often specialised tasks involved
in replicating the different types of genetic material and pro-
ducing viral messenger RNA. Viruses that produce many of
their own enzymes are more versatile than their simpler col-
leagues, but even the most complex viruses depend at some
stage on the proteins of the infected cell.
   Once the genetic material of the virus has been replicated
and large amounts of the coat proteins have been made, new
viruses are assembled. For many viruses (such as E-F in
Figure), this seems to occur spontaneously, but in other cases
(shown by route D-F) it is assisted by special viral proteins.
Completed viruses are then
released from the cell.  At
least some animal viruses are
released by a budding out-
wards of the cell membrane
(reversing the process of en-
docytosis) to produce a free
virus surrounded by a piece
of membrane taken from the
infected cell (G in Figure 2).
After release, viruses remain
inactive until they come into contact with and infect another
cell. Thus the infection spreads through the tissue.
   The cycle of infection outlined so far is the pathway of
acute viral infection, as in rabies or influenza, in which rapid
replication is followed by the release of new viruses to attack
other cells. In most cases the infected cells eventually disin-
tegrate and die, their own metabolism fatally disrupted by the
presence of the virus. The disintegration of infected cells pro-
vides another mechanism for the release of newly-formed
viruses.
   Acute infections cause many different diseases depending
on the types of viruses, animals and cells involved. Animals
fight the infection with their immune system (which can pro-
duce antibodies capable of neutralising viruses or can kill
infected cells) and by making interferon, the cell's natural
anti-viral drug. But some virus infections can follow another
path, other than the acute cycle of replication. This alterna-
tive path leads to integration of the viral genetic material into
the DNA of the infected cell's chromosomes (I). All of us
probably carry viral genes, integrated into our cellular DNA.
These genes are duplicated along with the chromosomes at
each cell division and can be passed down from parents to
their offspring.
   Once viral genes have become integrated into chromo-
somes their activity is usually altered or totally suppressed.
They often seem to be in a "latent" state in which no new
viruses are produced and the cells escape the damage caused
by acute infections. Such latent viruses can be re-activated by
a variety of poorly understood influences (including ultra
violet radiation, carcinogens and other chemicals) to produce
a sudden outbreak of the viral disease. This is what happens
when, in some cases, integrated viral genes can convert the
infected cell into a rapidly dividing cancer cell.
   For most viruses the replicative and integrative pathways
appear to be unrelated alternatives. Very little is known about
what triggers most animal viruses to follow either path; in-
deed it seems possible that integration is a random and acci-
dental process that does not occur at any specific sites on the
chromosomes. Supporting this idea is the observation that if
foreign DNA from any source is introduced into a cell, a
small proportion of it will eventually integrate into the cell's
chromosomes. This property has been exploited to introduce
new genes into the chromosomes of animal cells <1(New>1
<1Scientist,>1 vol 95, p 562).
   For one very special class of viruses however, integration
into the cell's chromosomes appears to be an essential part of
their normal life cycle. These are the retroviruses (shown as H
in Figure), whose genetic material is a single strand of RNA.
Retroviruses come supplied with a very interesting viral en-
zyme called reverse transcriptase (because it reverses the nor-
mal process of "transcription" in which DNA is copied into
RNA). This enzyme copies the RNA genetic material of the
virus into double-stranded DNA. The DNA copy is then
integrated into the chromosomes, from where it is in turn
copied into both messenger RNA (used to produce viral pro-
teins) and the RNA copies of the viral genetic material needed
for incorporation into new viruses. It seems, however, that
the viral genes cannot produce proteins or be replicated until
they are in the form of integrated DNA.
   The DNA of retroviruses is integrated much more readily
than the DNA of other viruses, but the mechanism of both
forms of integration in animal and plant cells is still poorly
understood. More is known about the process of integration
in bacterial cells, and a plausible mechanism has been con-
structed.
   Scientists are extremely interested in the integrative path of
viral infection because all of the viruses that have been found
to cause tumours (either cancerous or benign) appear to
integrate their genetic material into the infected cell's
chromosomes.
   The suspicion that viruses might cause cancer can be traced
back as far as 1911. In that year Peyton Rous of the Rocke-
feller Institute in New York reported that solid tumours could
be transmitted between chickens by filtered solutions from
which all bacterial and animal cells had been removed. Since
these early studies, many viruses have been shown to cause
cancer in animals, particularly the retroviruses with their re-
quirement for chromosomal integration as part of their nor-
mal life cycle. Practical and ethical problems make it difficult
to prove that viruses cause cancer in humans. Demonstrating
that a virus isolated from a human cancer can cause further
cancers in other humans is clearly an unacceptable experi-
ment! Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that humans enjoy a
privileged protection from cancer viruses not shared by the
rest of the animal kingdom.
   How can viruses induce cells to enter the cycle of rapid
multiplication that then leads on to the development of a
tumour?
   One of the most exciting developments in biology over the
past few years has been the identification of the specific genes
that allow some viruses to cause cancer. At least 17 of these
"cancer genes" have been identified, and in every case they
appear to be identical or very similar to normal genes found
in the chromosomes of healthy cells. This startling discovery
has supported the idea that cancer develops when a cell con-
tains too much of a perfectly normal cellular protein. Alterna-
tively, the protein may be modified so that its activity is
increased. By introducing extra highly-active copies of the
gene for one of these proteins into a cell, a tumour virus could
bring about increased production of the critical protein. The
precise role of these proteins is not yet known, but is the
subject of intensive investigation.


<2Integration of the viral genes>2
   Nevertheless, some viruses that lack known cancer genes
have also been found to induce cancer. It seems likely that
they achieve this by integration of the viral genes next to the
cellular copy of a cancer gene. The cancer gene might then
have its activity controlled by the region of the viral DNA that
controls the activity of the viral genes. This could again lead
to increased production of the "cancer-causing" protein,
transforming the cell into a cancer cell.
   These discoveries raise intriguing questions about the re-
lationship between viral genes and the normal genes of the
cell. It seems likely that the tumour viruses originally "stole"
their cancer genes from cellular DNA, and it may be that the
transfer of genes between viruses and cells is a very common
event. Researchers have recently discovered small regions of
genetic material in animal cells that can become detached
from the chromosomes, enjoy an independent existence for a
while, and then re-integrate at a different chromosomal lo-
cation. These mobile pieces of DNA (called transposons)
share many features in cornmon with the genetic material of
some viruses and it is possible that viruses have evolved from
them.
   The structure of a cell's genetic material may soon be ap-
preciated to be much more fluid than previously supposed,
with a grey area emerging between truly chromosomal gen-
etic material and the mobile genes of transposons, viruses,
and as yet undiscovered entities. Research over the next 10
years should greatly clarify the issue.
   From a medical viewpoint, the outline of viral infection
given so far presents much too simple a picture. There are
many baffling viral diseases that cannot be readily explained
as the result of an acute infection or the integration of viral
genes into chromosomes.
   Many of these diseases take the form of persistent or
chronic infections. Measles virus, for example, usually fol-
lows the cycle of acute infection until it is defeated by our
defence mechanisms and the disease disappears. In a small
number of cases, however, the virus can persist in the body
for several years, eventually causing a disease called sub-acute
sclerosing pan-encephalitis (SSPE).  SSPE is a chronic,
progressive form of encephalitis which can cause behavioural
changes, dementia, (myoclonic) jerks and eventually death.
The brains of its victims are found to contain areas in which
the death of nerve cells is accompanied by demyelination (the
break up of the fatty sheath surrounding nerve fibres, which
is essential to their correct functioning).
   How can measles virus escape the body's natural defences
to wreak such havoc? Much remains unknown about viral
persistence but in general it results from stalemate in the
battle between the virus and the body. Persistent infections
occupy the middle ground between acute life-threatening in-
fections that can overcome the immune and interferon sys-
tems, and infections that readily succumb to these
defences--albeit after a short burst of disease. Persistence can
occur if a virus escapes the full force of the defence mech-
anisms (for example if the patient's immune system is sup-
pressed for any reason), or if the virus is not particularly lethal
to the cells it infects.

<2How viruses persist>2
   Occasionally errors occur in the replicative cycle of a virus
and defective viruses begin to appear in cells. These defective
viruses have usually lost a portion of their genetic material or
suffered a single mutation that prevents them completing the
full replicative cycle. They may be unable to make some of
the viral proteins that should trigger the immune system into
action, leading to a weakened immune response against the
infection. At the same time they can interfere with the repli-
cation of normal viruses in the cell by using up raw materials.
Thus a balance of forces can result from a weakened infection
which induces a weakened immune response, leading to per-
sistence.
   The eventual cause of the serious symptoms of persistent
infections maly in fact be the immune system, confused by the
unusual situation and attacking its own healthy tissues in an
auto-immune response.  Such an auto-immune response
against nerve cell myelin sheaths is strongly suspected as the
cause of multiple sclerosis, and may cause the demyelination
seen in SSPE.
   Some persistent viruses may find refuge from the immune
system by harbouring in regions of the body, such as the
nervous system, which are relatively inaccessible to the cells
responsible for immunity. Herpes virus is known to persist in
the nervous system between recurrent outbreaks of symp-
toms. Sometimes antibodies can be produced that bind to a
virus but do not succeed in preventing it from entering and
infecting cells (called non-neutralising antibodies). In both
these situations the residual effects of the immune response
might restrict the damage caused by the virus suffciently to
allow a persistent infection to be tolerated by the body.
   What ever the mechanisms involved, persistent infections
are implicated in many troublesome and damaging diseases
such as SSPE, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, recurrent herpes
and many more. When considered alongside the effects of
acute infections such as colds, influenza, meningitis and ra-
bies) and the probable involvement of some viruses in human
cancer, then the need for effective therapies to combat viral
disease becomes clearer.                                      []
<2The forgotten energy crisis>2

--------------------------------

<2Energy for cooking is one of the biggest human needs. Yet planners igore it. To do so invites a>2

<2human and ecological catastrophe>2

<2Anil Agarwal>2


MENTION the energy crisis and what comes to mind?
The gas-guzzlers of the American freeways? Spot-
prices on the Rotterdam oil market? It is easy to forget
that most of the energy that the real world consumes is in the
million of stoves burning gas, kerosene, wood and coal in
homes across the Third World.
  Even though lndia is the world's tenth largest industrial
power, half of the energy its people consume, excluding
animal energy, is spent on cooking food. This is nearly twice
what agriculture and industry consume. In many under-
developed African countries, cooking may take three-
quarters of all energy. In most developed countries, cooking
would account for less than 5 per cent of national energy
consumption. The amount used on cooking is high in abso-
lute as well as in relative terms. A Third World family of six
would commonly burn about 3.6 tonnes of wood per year,
nearly 12 times the average that a British family consumes.
The wood-stoves that cook the food are extremely inefficient.
However, energy planners in the Third World tend to over-
look this essential need even though it is the most crucial for
human survival and the most sensitive to environrnental con-
ditions.
  For India, despite the massive development of oil and coal,
non-commercial sources of energy, such as firewood, agricul-
tural wastes and cow dung, are crucial. In 1975-76, 133 mil-
lion tonnes of firewood provided India with 28 per cent of its
total energy. Another 73 million tonnes of dung and 41 mil-
lion tonnes of agricultural wastes are burnt each year.
These non-commercial sources provide as much as 87 per
cent of India's cooking energy.  Coal and kerosene con-
tributed only 8 per cent of the total cooking energy in
1953-54, and rose to a peak of 14 per cent in 1970-71. After
the oil price rise, this dropped to 13 per cent in 1975-76.
  It is a fallacy, although a common one, that firewood, coal,
dung and agricutural wastes are used mainly in the villages.
As much as 56 per cent of the domestic energy consumed in
cities comes from non-commercial sources. According to
India's planning commission, nearly three-quarters of
households in towns and cities depend on non-commercial
energy for cooking.
   Firewood provides half the cooking energy in Indian cities
and 70 per cent in villages. The price of coal and kerosene is
rising rapidly, and the forests are being denuded. People will
find it progressively difficult to meet their basic need for
cooking energy. As a result, the price of both commercial and
so-called non-commercial fuels is rising rapidly.  Between
1970-71 and 1980-81, per capita income rose by 143 per
cent, and the wholesale prices of all commodities rose by 150
per cent.  But the wholesale prices of commercial
fuels--power, light and lubricants--rose by 264 per cent. In
many cities the price of firewood has nearly doubled in the
past six years. The demand for firewood now far outstrips
supply. Populous Uttar Pradesh, for instance, produced only
18 million cu.m. By 2000 the demand will be 63 million
cu.m.
  Experts know little about how people are coping, but re-
search in the past couple of years shows that for the majority
of India's people the cooking energy crisis is already here.
   In hills and plains, women and children spend hours trav-
elling long distances to collect fuel. In Dwing, a village in the
high Garhwal Himalayas of Uttar Pradesh, women walk at
least 10 kilometres three out of four days, for an average of
seven hours per day, to bring back about 25 kg of wood with
each headload.
   Even rich villages have their energy-poor. In Navli, a pros-
perous village close to the famous cooperative Amul Dairy in
Gujarat, irrigation, cash crop farming and animal husbandry
have made several families very rich. But with firewood
supplies dwindling, and prices of imported firewood rising
farmers with large numbers of cattle have set up biogas plants
and large landowners have started collecting their crop resi-
dues for fuel. So even though more cow dung and crop-
residues are available, people who have no land face
increasing hardships. They are now totally dependent on the
landlords. As one poor women in the village laments: "There
isn't enough money for food, so where is the question of
buying firewood? We sometimes uproot small plants from
around fences. When we are caught, we are fined. We have
lost our livelihood and, it seems, our lives too."
   To what extent these isolated scenes of rural India add up
to a true picture of the situation across the country is difficult
to say. Studies of India's energy economy are rare, and know-
ledge of trends even rarer. But it can be assumed that many
millions of poor rural women are caught in a vicious cycle:
they eat food to get human energy, and then spend all
this energy in producing food
and collecting the energy
needed to cook it. There is
little else left in their lives.
   We know even less about
supplies of cooking energy in
urban India, especially in
small towns. Nearly three-
quarters of firewood and
about half of the dung in
urban India is purchased. A
substantial part of this fire-
wood is brought in from the
villages to be sold in the
cities,    although    nobody
really knows how much.
Thousands of people carry
firewood on their heads to
Ranchi every day from
nearby villages. All the three
daytime trains from Dhrona-
chalam to Kurnool in
Andhra Pradesh bring with them a garland of firewood
bundles strung outside carriage windows. In Kurnool, these
trains are known as "Firewood Specials".
   The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore has shown
that the city draws in nearly half a million tonnes of firewood
every year. Most of it comes on diesel trucks. Considering
that most woodstoves have an efficiency of only 5-10 per
cent, for every 100 calories of energy provided by firewood for
cooking, 25 calories are spent in the form of imported
petroleum to transport this firewood to the city.
   Although the government has been pushing liquid petro-
leum gas (LPG) in metropolitan cities, its supply remains
restricted to the upper middle class and the demand far
outstrips the supply. In towns, kerosene is the main fuel for
cooking. It is now almost certain that more people in Indian
cities will become dependent on kerosene for cooking in the
near future. Bombay's population, 1 per cent of the national
population, burns one-tenth of the kerosene consumed in the
country.  In 1981 the government had to resort to crash
purchases of kerosene to meet shortages.
   In fact, the erratic supplies of kerosene and LPG make it
impossible for many middle-class families to rely on one
source of energy. In Calcutta, where the electricity supply is
erratic, it can take a month to replace an exhausted LPG
cylinder. Because the supply of kerosene is not assured, many
families turn to a fourth alternative: coal. But as new houses
generally do not have chimneys, the use of "angithis" (coal
stoves) means a lot of smoke. Many landlords in Calcutta, for
example, make prospective tenants promise not to burn coal.
And few families can afford all four forms of cooker.
   There is still no study that describes what families at differ-
ent levels of earning spend on cooking energy, and how this
changes over time. In cities, poor families spend a much
larger proportion on energy-often as much as 12-15 per cent
of their income. For a relatively prosperous family, spending
on cooking probably drops to less than 5 per cent of the
annual income. Considering that poor families ought to
spend about 80-90 per cent of their income on food, rising
fuel prices mean that they must be eating less. For an already
malnourished population, this is unfortunate. Reports from
Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan show that some rural
families may be spending a quarter of their incomes on fuel.
  The shortage of cooking energy not only causes problems
with nutrition, but also spreads disease. The Food and Agri-
culture Organisation's document <1Agriculture. Toward 2000>1,
points out that with the production of fuelwood expected to
fall short by 40 per cent, "many poor people will not be able
to cook their food adequately. This can have serious nutri-
tional and health consequences. The digestibility of food
will decrease, and also the incidence of parasites in-
                                   gested with insufficiently
                                   cooked meat will rise. There
                                   are reports of this happening
                                   already."
                                     The    already-widespread
                                   incidence of scabies in India
                                   can certainly be attributed to
                                   inadequate supplies of water
                                   and fuel.  If people cannot
                                   heat water in winter, they
                                   will not wash.  The result:
                                   scabies.
                                     So how are the poor trying
                                   to meet the energy crunch?
                                   Who, for example, uses fire-
                                   wood? There is now definite
                                   evidence that villagers are
                                   trying to meet their energy
                                   needs by substituting one
                                   resource     for     another--
                                   agricultural wastes for fire-
                                   wood, for example. Contrary
to popular belief, recent studies reveal that wood (especially
firewood in the shape of logs rather than small twigs and
branches) has become so scarce that in many villages only the
rich can afford to buy it. The bulk of firewood burned today
is in twigs and branches. The poor rarely fell trees: they
mainly lop off small branches, twigs, roots and dead wood.

<2Threat of market forces>2
  In Pura, a village in Kamataka, Professor Amulva Reddy
and his colleagues from the Indian Institute of Science found
that 96 per cent of the wood that poor families burned was in
the form of twigs. The rest was small branches. In contrast,
rich households, which get wood from their own land, depend
on logs. They consume nearly one-fifth of the village's fire-
wood. Thus Reddy concludes that gathered firewood, upon
which three-quarters of the people of Pura depend, does not
contribute to deforestation.
   There may even be a male-female dichotomy on the issue.
Among the poor, it is women and children who collect fire-
wood, and they seldom cut down trees. The men, who are
interested in cash, are more liable to go for the big wood.
  It is the commercialisation of fuel that poses the greatest
threat to India's forests. In the cities, even traditionally non-
commercial fuels are going on the market. The same trend
happens in the rural areas, although at a slower pace. And it
is the relatively rich, in small towns and on the fringes of big
cities, who create this demand. The headloaders of Ranchi
and the "firewood specials" of Kurnool are responses to this.
In the process, the landless poor, whose numbers grow every
day, try to earn a pittance.
  The pressure on trees differs between regions. Families in
the hills not only consume 25 per cent more energy than
those on the plains, they also consume more firewood. In
desert and hilly regions, where agricultural production is
low, people obtain two-thirds of their energy from firewood.
In the plains, its contribution drops to 37 per cent, and
that of crop residues goes up to 31 per cent. Thus firewood is
the most important source of energy in desert areas, where
vegetation is sparse. The situation is ecologically disastrous.
   The rising number of landless and marginal farmers
poses a serious challenge. In 1977, 24 million households,
with a total population of 114 million, each had less
than 0.4 hectares of land. With firewood declining, these
people will turn more to cow dung, and become more
dependent on landowners. Any trend toward the commer-
cialisation of fuels such as dung and plant residues, or the
introduction of technology such as biogas plants to allow
land-owning families to exploit these resources themselves,
will inevitably hit the landless poor. Certainly they could
easily find themselves short of energy amid plenty.
   While much has been writ-
ten about the concentration
of land and cattle-holdings,
there is no information about
who owns trees.  A study
from a village in Bangladesh
shows that 16 per cent of its
families owned 55 per cent of
the cropped land, and 46 per
cent of the cattle.  They
owned 80 per cent of the
trees, and took a keen inter-
est in protecting them.
   The old feudal relation-
ship, in which a landlord
took care of his agricultural

labourers, is rapidly disap-
pearing under the onslaught
of the cash economy. Many
           new farmers leave the village
poor to fend for themselves.
Thus, even if biomass energy
increased, the poorest villagers may find that in periods when
employment is scarce, there is no livelihood better than to
collect some wood and sell it. The environment is of no
concern to people who have to scrounge around for plant
waste by the roadside for their own stoves.
   In Gujarat, two industrial consultants recently investigated
why the process developed by the Cotton Technology
Research Laboratory in Bombay to make boards from cotton
stalks had not been adopted, although wood was expensive.
They visited three tribal villages where cotton stalks are a
major crop residue: Goral, Kanpur and Choriwad, They
found that, when wood became expensive, the poor villagers
relied on cotton stalks as fuel. A big farmer admitted that he
had been selling cotton stalks to agricultural labourers, a new
trend in the region.
   Dr B. S. Pathak, of the Punjab Agricultural University, has
studied the potential of agricultural wastes in a village in the
district of Ludhiana. Bhundri is a relatively rich village, where
several farms have tractors, and all the farmers practise green
revolution agriculture. Although the village is rich, cooking
accounts for 98 per cent of the energy its householders
consume. They burn nearly three-quarters of their animal
wastes as fuel.
Pathak's calculations yield an amazing result. After the
village has met all its needs for fodder, the energy potential of
the remaining crop wastes and animal wastes is enough to
fuel the village (for cooking, pumping water, making fertil-
isers) and still leave a surplus.
But will the increased availability of energy in the village
really mean more energy for the very poor? There is no
evidence to believe that this would be so. Even in fuel-rich
Bhundri, three families have to collect plants to burn as fuel.
  If a government in the Third World wants to meet the
energy needs of its people without destroying the environ-
ment or creating human misery, it has to adopt an integrated
national policy on energy for cooking. To date, rural planners
have virtually ignored the need for cooking energy. The few
attempts to increase supplies have been marked only by <1ad->1
<1hoc>1 efforts based on technology, with biogas plants, solar
cookers or fuelwood plantations promoted as universal solu-
tions.
   The pattern of the supply and demand for cooking
energy is extremely complex.  People live in different
ecological regions, different types of settlements, and have
different levels of income.  Attempts to introduce new
cooking-energy technologies will have to be far more system-
atic.  Each source of energy or technology has its own
economic, social and ecological niche, and it is only in that
niche that it can prosper. The ever popular blanket solutions,
such as biogas plants for all and sundry, will not work.
                                      Identifying these niches
                                   can bring surprises.  Solar
                                   cookers, for instance, instead
                                   of becoming the answer to
                                   the needs of poor villagers
                                   and thus easing the pressure
                                   of firewood, could become a
                                   tool for the middle classes.
                                   There, they would reduce the
                                   need for oil products such as
                                   kerosene and petroleum gas.
                                   Not only can the middle
                                   classes afford solar cookers,
                                   they are also the people that
                                   the rising price of petroleum
                                   products hits the most. They
                                   may, therefore, be more keen
                                   to save energy than the fuel-
                                   gathering poor.  A govern-
                                   ment supermarket in New
                                   Delhi has been selling 10
                                   solar cookers every day for
the past few months for about #20 each. Shops in Gujarat
have already sold more than 7000. Middle-class families get
their investment back in two to three years if they cook half
their lunch every day in the cooker.
   A national policy on cooking energy also has to take into
account the increasing interaction between the energy needs
of the urban and rural areas. It must also make full use of all
sources of energy.
   India has launched many social forestry programmes with
the professed intention of meeting community needs such as
firewood for cooking.  But in reality, none of these
programmes is helping to increase the production of fire-
wood. The increase supply goes to those who can pay--the
paper industry and the urban consumer. To make it profit-
able to grow wood, the state of Gujarat, where thousands of
farmers have turned over good irrigated land to tree farming,
has even proposed to build generating stations fuelled with
wood. But if this were to happen, only the rich would benefit.
Thus, a second green revolution may be in the offing hereby
big energy production increases, but the energy-poor still
starve.
   Gerald Leach, of the International Institute for Environ-
ment and Development in London, points out that, on a
global basis, there is no real shortage of oil products for basic
human needs. But each country will have to look at its own
resources and solutions. India, at least, despite its large popu-
lation, is not short of resources--wood, biogas, animal waste
and plants.
   Cooking energy is clearly one of the biggest human needs,
second only to food. The problem in meeting this need is not
lack of resources, technologies or knowledge, but of political
will and organisation. It is a case of huge inequalities, between
and within nations, and of starvation amid plenty.
                                         []
<2The neglected science of UFOs>2


<2The study of UFOs has tended to attract cranks rather than scientists, for good reasons. But behind>2
<2the more bizarre, outlandish aspects of ufology lie some phenomena worthy of study>2

<2Jenny Randles and Peter Warrington>2


THREE years ago James Oberg won the <1New>1
<1Scientist>1/Cutty Sark competition for his essay on
unidentified flying objects. His entry, "The failure of the
science of ufology", attacked the very existence of such a
subject <1(New Scientist,>1 vol 84, p 102). But was that the end of
the story? Is there indeed no science to be found in the study
of the phenomena of UFOs?
The first person in Britain to receive a grant for a scientific
study of the UFO phenomenon is a sociologist, Shirley
Melver of York University. She took her doctorate in the
study of the UFO movement itself, and has worked with
several British researchers on what has turned out to be an
illuminating project. Her social questionnaires have delved
into the motivations of those individuals involved with the
subject, and she has tried to discover their opinions, social
status, and political and religious affiliations.
  The UFO community works principally through belief, not
only in the existence of inexplicable UFOs, but also, usually,
in some quite bizarre theory of their origin, often that they are
a form of alien technology. Ufologists include a cross-section
of the population spanning pseudo-religious fanatics to
reasonably careful researchers. Indeed it is surprising that
more studies have not been conducted in a field that,
whatever else it may be, is surely one of the world's most
remarkable systems of belief.
These social-science studies have shown that the average
lifetime of a ufologist is about two years, after which the
individual faces a crisis point. He, or she, finds that the reality
of the subject is not what he desired it to be and that he cannot
even prove its basic tenets. This relegates the whole subject to
one of belief, of having faith in a non-provable hypothesis.
Indeed it is possible that many people recognise subcon-
sciously that the hypothesis is not merely unprovable, but
false; certainly many drift away from an active interest in the
subject.
  The bulk of those who remain interested in UFOs seem less
likely to have been motivated by personal experience and are
more willing to undergo the reappraisal needed to rationalise
their approach. The first symptom of such a change is to
accept that all past data collected on UFOs are, in scientific
terms, largely useless. This fact is reflected in the falling num-
her of reports collected by the British UFO Research Associ-
ation. A switch of emphasis, backed up by education, internal
accreditisation and a definition of standards, has led the asso-
ciation away from superficial reports on all observations of
UFOs to more detailed case-files on selected events. In this
way researchers are able to search for direct comparisons
between reports and to isolate categories of phenomena. It
turns out that there is no single mythical "UFO phenom-
enon"; instead there is a collection of phenomena that are
probably independent and which may well require several
different mechanisms to explain them all. Such phenomena
are not manifestations of alien technology; rather, they are
phenomena that occur naturally here on Earth.
  Of course many pitfalls may lie in wait at this point of the
research. But it is possible, with caution, to isolate categories
of UFO with general characteristics.  An example of one
category of UFO, which some researchers have pinpointed, is
of objects with an ovoid shape from 1 to 3 metres in diameter,
which rotate on a vertical axis, close to the ground, and which
<1appear>1 to emit a wide range of electromagnetic radiation.
  Perhaps what is most important is that the nature of such
identifiable UFO categories, and the conditions under which
they might be observed, are predictable, after careful analysis
of the data. Scientific searches, with appropriate instrum-
entation, are now able to prove once and for all that these
UfOs do exist, and can provide information about their
nature. To distinguish such phenomena from more dubious
data, we propose that they should be renamed "UAPs", for
unidentified atmospheric phenomena, as this seems to
be an appropriate and adequate description.

What is lacking at this stage is for some imaginative
research laboratory or university department to contact
serious UFO researchers and design an experimental study
for these UAPs. In the US, Harley Rutledge, head of the
physics department at Southcast Missouri State University,
has conducted a, pilot study, with some encouraging results.
His researchers made excellent observations on 178 separate
UAPs which Rutledge has published in <1Project Identification>1
(Prentice Hall, 1981).
Once there are more data available, and the phenomena
are established as real, the way is open for theorising about the
nature of UAPs. But there has already been some progress in
this direction. Michael Persinger, associate professor of psy-
chology at Laurentian University in Ontario, has proposed
that some UAPs are a consequence of the piezo-electric effect.
In essence he is arguing that strain in certain types of under-
ground rock can generate an electric signal, which in turn can
ionise a column of air above the rock. The ionised column
would move through the atmosphere as the source of strain
moved underground. And the ionised air can glow, taking on
a shape, according to Persinger, similar to that popularly
ascribed to many UFOs that fall into the category of UAPs.
   Brian Brady at the US Bureau of Mines in Colorado has put
the effect described by Persinger to the test. He subjected
quantities of quartz crystal to pressures similar to those occur-
ring in active fault zones in the Earth's crust, and he found
that the piezo-electric effect did induce visible ionisation of
the surrounding air, just as Persinger predicted.
   Persinger has suggested a large number of consequences
should his theory indeed be correct. For example, sightings of
UAPs should be concentrated around active fault zones; there
should be more in hilly terrain; reservoirs with their attendant
stresses on the rock should be focal points for the effect; and
the passage of masses of air, such as cold fronts, should
release any strain that may
have built up.
   Persinger's hypothesis thus
contains what has long been
demanded of ufology: a
theory capable either of
validation or falsification.
Neither Persinger nor Brady
is a ufologist, but certain
UFO researchers have come
to recognise the importance
of their work and set about
verifying it. Paul Devereux, a
British     researcher     into
"Earth mysteries", has re-
cently published the results of his preliminary study (Earth
Liggts, Turnstone, 1982). He attempts to show that there is a
significant correlation between active fault zones in Britain
and areas where UFOs are most often sighted.
   One area that has since 1972 been recognised as a region of
many UFO sightings is in the Pennine foothills surrounding
Leeds and Manchester, an area that also has a high concen-
tration of active faults. Local inhabitants and police forces
talk of a luminous aerial phenomenon, known as the "mys-
tery helicopter" because of its low-level manoeuvrability.
(Surprisingly, Devereux found that this was the only area of
active faults that did not have a marked number of UFO
reports, but this seems to be a result of his patchy methods of
obtaining data.)
   In research completed this year, one of us (Randles) has
shown that the "mystery helicopter" is a typical UAP and has
verified in the field a substantial number of Persinger's postu-
lates. For example, the study shows a correlation between
levels of sighting and the thickness of quartz-bearing rock;
that the most active faults, such as the Craven fracture, tend
to produce the most spectacular UFO concentrations in local
folklore; that there is a direct association between the lights
and the presence of reservoirs; and clear indications that the
UAP entails atmospheric ionisation. There are even sug-
gestions that Persinger's idea that weather systems can trigger
UAPs might be realistic. This research will be published in
<1The Pennine UFO Mystery>1 (Granada) this spring.
   It is interesting that Rutledge's study of a hill area in
Missouri appears also to illustrate several of Persinger's
predicted features. And is it merely coincidence that the two
completed studies in the field both revolve around hilly
terrain, just as Persinger suggested? We believe that these
preliminary studies strongly indicate that here, at last, is a
valid theory for some UFO phenomena, and that what we
have called UAPs can now be tested scientifically.
   While this search for a physical basis to the UFO phenom-
enon has been continuing, there has been parallel research
into another aspect. This category is much more contro-
versial and inherently implausible, as it contains the alleged
abductions of humans on board a UFO. The abductors are
typically described as "alien beings" and the UFO as a
"spaceship". Serious UFO researchers have come to recognise
that these stories are essentially subjective. Randles, for ex-
ample, found that while for observations of UAPs the average
number of witnesses per sighting was about 2.6, this number
fell dramatically for abductions to an average of only 1.3.
And the more bizarre the alleged abduction, the closer this
figure tended towards 1.0, or total subjectivity.
   Persinger has suggested that these reports might be
hallucinations instilled into the witnesses by the effect of
ionising radiation in close proximity. The work of some UFO
investigators has also shown apparent comparisons between
the physiological effects of close contact with UFOs and
temporal lobe epilepsy.  This might support Persinger's
hypothesis, as might the fact that the only recent abduction
reported in the Pennine area occurred on the Craven fault.
   Meanwhile Alvin Lawson, professor of English at
California State University, and his colleague, William
McCall, a medical hypnotist, have endeavoured to prove
whether the details of memories about abduction can be ex-
plained purely in terms of the psychology of the percipient.
This would be the case if indeed the events were involuntary
hallucinations. In their initial work, Lawson and McCall put
imaginative individuals, screened for lack of UFO knowledge
or interest, into a state of controlled hypnosis. The subjects
were then asked to hallucinate a UFO abduction, and the
researchers compared the results with memories of allegedly
real abductions. They found marked points of similarity.
   Latest tests seem to indicate a 100 per cent correlation
between certain modes of abduction imagery and the way the
subject was born. If born by natural means, the subject's entry
into the UFO will never be imagined as by way of a bright
explosion of light; if born by surgical means, the entry will
never be by transport along a tube or tunnel. Lawson views
these methods of entry into the UFO as repressed memories
of sudden forced emergence into the world at birth, or of slow
travel along the birth canal in the normal way.
   Some psychologists still dispute the experiments of Lawson
and McCall. They argue that there is no independent proof
that an individual is capable of remembering the birth pro-
cess. But, it remains possible that the imagery is a construct
                      based upon that person's
                                    memory (as later told to him)
                                    of his process of birth. If this
                                    is true then there may be a
                                    loophole for the theory; a
                                    case where an individual, for
                                    some reason or another, such
                                    as being abandoned at birth,
                                    never discovers how he was
                                    born, nor has opportunity to
                                    absorb such information
                                    unconsciously while a young
                                    child.
                                     We have not intended in
                                   this article to prove any
specific origin for UFO phenomena, or to appeal to the sci-
entific community for greater respect. But the value of UFO
research to science does seem clear. lt is a crossdisciplinary
topic, offering data in fields as diverse as the psychology of
perception, hallucinations, sociology of belief, atmospheric
physics, geophysics and several others. That would appear to
make it worthwhile for science to be a little more lenient with
the serious UFO researchers and their data.                []


<2REVIEW>2


<2Successful selection of the sexes>2

-----------------------------------

<2The theory of sex allocation>2
by Eric Charnov, <1Princeton UP, pp 335, #29.80, pbk #9.65>1

<1Paul Harvey>1

       CHARLES DARWIN in an
       uncharacteristically gen-
       erous donation to
       scientists of later generations,
       left an unsolved problem. It was
       that of sex allocation:  what
       resources should an individual
       put into male and female
       reproductive functions either
       directly or by determining the
       sex of its offspring?  Darwin
       seemed near a solution in the
       first edition of <1The Descent of>1
       <1Man and Selection in Relation>1
       <1to Sex,>1 but by the second edition
       he had decided that it was a
       problem best left "for the
       future".
         R. A. Fisher started to solve
       the problem in 1930 with the
       straightforward observation that
       each of us gets about one-half of
       our genes from our mother and
       the other half from our father.
       That trivial fact means that, in
       diploid organisms (those with
       two sets of chromosomes), both
       sexes contribute equally to each
       generation.  Furthermore, if
       males are in short supply in one
       generation, they will be selec-
       tively favoured by contributing
       disproportionately to the next
       generation.     Under     many
       circumstances, the evolution-
       arily stable allocation to male
       and female reproductive func-
       tions should be about the same.
       However, the sex allocation
       theory that Eric Charnov has
       developed in his embracing
       monograph has further impli-
       cations. Take two examples.
         Females of several parasitic
       species of wasp sting weevil
       larvae, beside which they lay a
       single egg. If the females release
       stored sperm, the egg becomes
       fertilised and develops as a
       female, othervise it becomes a
       male. Given two populations of
       hosts, one containing equal
       numbers of 1.0 and 1.4 mm
       larvae and the other containing
       1.4 and 1.8 mm larvae, in each
       population more female wasps
       develop from the larger hosts
       and more males from the
       smaller. This means that adult
       female wasps are determining
the sex of their offspring in
response to environmental
variation--in this case, changes
in host size.  This is because
females reared on larger hosts
are able to lay more eggs, but
males do not gain by being
larger.
  Apparently far removed from
parasitic wasps, individuals of
some species of shrimp from
temperate and arctic waters
undergo sex reversal. After start-
ing life as males they turn into
females, while other shrimps in
the same populations spend
their whole lives as females. The
proportions of individuals with
these alternative life styles differ
between populations, so that in
some areas of the world all
individuals change sex.
  The shrimps can live for
several years and the average
mortality rate in adults within a
population is a good predictor of
the proportion of individuals
within a population which will
change sex.  When the life
expectancies of the shrimps are
short then most of those which
start life as males may not
survive long enough to become
females. Under such conditions
  natural selection may favour
some individuals occupying the
all-female life style. As is the
  case with the parasitic wasp, >
  > it seems that sex allocation
  is occuring in response to envi-
  ronmental variation.
    The beauty of Charnov's book
  is that it uses one simple
  theoretical technique, hat of the
  evolutionary stable strategy, to
  tackle apparently disparate
  problems in sex allocation
  theory. Furthemore, the equi-
  librium allocation often reduces
  to the so-called Shaw-Mohler
  form, that selection favours
  mutants which alter life histories
  so that the per cent gain in
  fitness through one sex function
  exceeds the per cent loss through
  the other sex function.
    Within this framework, Char-
  nov deals with sex ratios in
  dioecious species (those having
  separate sexes), with the order
  and timing of sex change in
  sequential hermaphrodites, with
  the equilibrium allocation of
  resources for simultaneous
  hermaphrodites, with condi-
  tions favouring the transition
  between dioecy and herma-
  phroditism, and with the selec-
  tive forces likely to alter the
  allocation to male versus female
  function (such as local mate and
  local resource competition).
  But Charnov's feet are firmly
on the ground. He never strays
far from elegant applications of
the theory to field and labora-
tory studies, many of them his
own.   In pursuit of relevant
material, he has worked with or
analysed data from parasitic and
trap-nesting wasps, shrimps,
fishes, barnacles, limpets and
plants.  As he develops his
theme, he concurrently reviews
a wide literature and continually
suggests plant and animal
groups which will provide tests
of alternative hypotheses. There
are numerous cross-references
in the book where apparently
different problems reduce to the
same theoretical form.
  My only worry about the
book is that Chapters 2 and 3
may deter some readers. Much
of the relevant theory is devel-
oped in these early chapters, but
not with sufficient care. Parts
are telegraphic, and clarity is
sometimes sacrificed for brevity,
as with Charnov's treatment of
the graphical approach to sex
allocation theory in Chapter 3.
And,   although I agree with the
author that the Shaw-Mohler
equation is characterised by "its
utter simplicity", it seems a little
brutal to derive it in a page of
text by introducing 11 variables,
when the equation itself can be
reduced to three.
   Nevertheless, such criticisms
are minor compared with the
achievements of this book, It is
the first book to deal compre-
hensively with sex allocation
theory, and it will surely remain
a classic for years to come.  []


<2Mind and body in battle>2

Pain and its conquest
by H. B. Gibson, <1Peter Owen, pp 223, #10.95>1

<2Pat Wall>2


DR GIBSON is a psycho-
logist who has written on
hypnotism and on Hans
Eysenck.  It is therefore not
surprising that he should here
stress the psychological aspects
of pain and its control rather
than the nuts and bolts of noci-
ceptors, unmyelinated afferents,
spinothalamic tracts and those
splendid phrases designed to
send medical students back to
sleep in the belief that they now
understand pain mechanisms.
   Psychology   has    recently
gained the respectability it
should always have had with
respect to pain, for two
completely irrelevant reasons.
In the good old days of rampant
dualism, the mind was rarely
mentioned in polite society. But
in the 1960s the gate control
theory of pain showed that pain-
provoking messages proceeding
toward the head were the result
of interactions between inhibi-
tory and excitatory effects from
the periphery which mixed in
spinal mechanism.
However, it was also shown
that this gate mechanism was
controlled      by      impulses
descending    from  the  brain.
Suddenly a mechanism was
provided by which the brain
(which may or may not be
considered in some way related
to the mind) could intrude on
the elementary processes of
message reception and trans-
mission.  Phenomena such as
suggestion, attitude, state of
mind etc were promptly given a
concrete target on which they
could operate. It will be seen
that the presence of a receiving
target explains nothing but it
does nudge two previously sepa-
rate areas of discourse, the mind
and the body, into a common
sphere.  Therapies such as
cognitive training and coping
strategies descended from the air
of witchcraft to something solid
if jelly-like--the substantia
gelatinosa of the spinal cord.
  An even more irrelevant
discovery exaggerated
process. One aspect of the gate
control operates by use of endo-
genous opiates of which there
are  three    chemically-defined
families, the enkephalins, the
dynorphins and the endorphins.
One of the best-known facts of
the Western world is that the
placebo response operates by
release of internally-generated
opiates. The inability to confirm
this well-known fact has not
spoilt the sudden acceptance of

the placebo as something with at
least a false concrete expla-
nation rather than being some
form of gothic magic about
which it is better not to speak.
  <1Pain and its Conquest>1 concen-
trates on perception cognition
and emotion, and the ways of
manipulating these by verbal
and intellectual means rather
than concentrating on the more
traditional methods of control
by cutting, by blocking or the
more recent manipulating of
existing control systems by
chemical or electrical stimu-
lation.  Unfortunately, I could
not find either a clear descrip-
tion of what these psycho-
therapies amount to nor a
critical account of the scientific
trials to which some of them
have been subjected. Nowhere is
this more apparent than in the
chapter, "Women's pains".
  This subject is a minefield as
dangerous for feminists as for
chauvinists. A small number of
women, having scrupulously
learnt relaxation, self-hypnosis,
breath control and their mantra,
have the experience of a pain-
free childbirth.  Another small
number of women who have
never heard of Lamaze,
Velvovski or NW3 have the
same experience. Some women
who come from exactly the
same culture with the same
intent go through absolute hell.
To make it worse, they feel
guilty about it; they think they
are failures to themselves,
traitors to their sex and threats
to their babies. They are wrong.
It is no help to the sufferer or to
a solution of the mind-body
problem to propose that mind
and body are engaged in battle
from which the mind should
always emerge as victorious.  []


<2The search for artificial intelligence>2
------------------------------------------
Computers that think by Margaret Hyde
<1Enslow, pp 126, $8.95, pbk $4.95>1

<2Margaret Boden>2


THIS is a clearly written, but
extremely superficial, in-
troduction to the field of arti-
ficial intelligence (AI). Although
readers will gain hardly any
understanding of how "intelli-
gent" programs work, they will
get a glimpse of the aims and
current achievements of AI, and
of the attendant ethical and
social problems.
  A good feature of Market
Hyde's book, in comparison
with other highly popular treat-
ments of such matters, is its
reiteration that certain problems
which may appear to be fairly
simple are in fact extremely
difficult. For instance, enabling
a robot to recognise a wide vari-
ety of objects in different posi-
tions and lighting-conditions is
currently beyond the state of the
art, as is building a robot or
desk-computer that will under-
stand many different sentences,
on different topics and spoken
by different speakers. Our own
powers of visual perception and
understanding language are
both apparently effortless and
introspectively obscure--which
leads people to underestimate
the difficulty of simulating these
rich information-processing
capacities in a computer.
  Most of the criticisms one
could make concern errors of
omission rather than of
commission. A brief discussion
of some programs written to
understand language, including
some that ferret out the "gist" of
a short passage and are able to
answer questions about it, gives
a sense both of the difficulties
and of the promise of these types
of approach. A program know-
ing something about people's
typical behaviour in restaurants
is able to <1infer>1 (without needing
to be explicitly told) that if John
asked for the bill and then left,
he probably paid the bill before
leaving. Hyde mentions a
program that can automatically
provide <1precis>1 of news stories,
but does not point out that it can
attempt to do this only for a
restricted range of stories. Much
as the "restaurant-program" has
to be told about conventional
behaviour in restaurants, so the
"newspaper-reader" has to be
told about road-accidents, earth-
quakes, hijackings, and the like.
It can provide a <1precis>1 only
where the topic is something
that it knows about, so that it
has some sense of what concep-
tual relationships to expect in
the story. There are many other
examples where, readers may
assume that much more can be
done than is in fact the case.
  Hyde's account, then, will
whet the appetite rather than
satisfy it (the "Suggested
reading" gives a useful list of
more detailed, yet still
introductory, books).   <1Com->1
<1puters That Think>1 raises some
socially important and intel-
lectually fascinating questions
about the relation of man and
machine, and its intelligibility
will prompt discussion on these
important matters. It is aimed at
the general reader who knows
nothing whatever about AI or
related fields, and can be recom-
mended at that level.          []


<2Life in the eyrie>2
---------------------
Golden eagle years
by Mike Tomkies
<1Heinemann, pp 202, #9.95>1

Stephen Mills
WHEN contemplating the
profundities of nature,
men have often found it difficult
to say much of substance. Mike
Tomkies responds to the golden
eagle with a smattering of
science, a touch of religion and
quantities of romance. His book
is not the authoritative eight-
year study promised by the
publishers. It is a slightly adoles-
cent, indulgent account of a love
affair--adolescent because it is
redolent of a wide-eyed naivety
out of place in a middle-aged
man: indulgent because at times
he hints that the eagles, with
names like Atalanta and
Melanion, may be reciprocating
his feelings.
     The book partakes of the

American "Trapper and Moun-
tain   Man"  tradition:  tough
living, long hard treks, hardly a
woman from cover to cover, and
only the inevitable dog for
company.  Next to survival,
Tomkies presents photography
as the knottiest task known to
man. Most of the illustrations
are atrocious.
 Nevertheless, there is some in-
spiration to be garnered from
this book. It speaks confidently
of the existence of a wilderness in
Britain which, like the wolf,
many of us may have regarded as
extinct.  Furthermore, anyone
who has spent days and nights
cramped into hides being rained
on, only to have every twinge of
discomfort dispelled instantly by
the appearance of a bird or
animal, will recognise the
authenticity of Tomkies's
experiences watching eagles.
   His most interesting obser-
vations describe the unusual
rearing of two chicks in one
eyrie. He attributes this success
to the strong bond that existed
between the parents: a plentiful
food supply; the friendly inter-
relation of the chicks them-
selves, apparently because they
were of opposite sexes; and, not
least, the shape and size of the
nest which gave them space to
keep out of each other's way.
   His support of the official
scientific view that eagles are no
threat to the sheep farmer is also
worth having. In 520 hours of
observation, he saw only two
lambs being brought to the nest
that might have been killed by
eagles. Out of 105 items of prey
he examined, only 7 were pieces
of lamb compared with 3 entire
fox bodies and 25 rabbits.
  Unfortunately these revela-
tions do not stretch to fill the
book. still, locating 27 golden
eagle eyries across 750 sq.km is
no mean feat, especially for a
man observed with vertigo and
arthritic knees.               []
<2An open framework of holes>2
------------------------------
Hydrothermal chemistry of zeolites
by R. M. Barrer, <1Academic, pp 360, #31>1

John Emsley


BY TINKERING with the
complex atomic frameworks
of minerals called zeolities,
chemists have developed cata-
lysts that can turn low-grade
fuels into petrol and useful raw
materials. Zeolites are naturally
occurring minerals based, like
most other minerals, on poly-
meric silicates in which the basic
sub-unit is the silicate SiO4
group with its central silicon
atom surrounded by four
covalently-bonde oxygen
atoms.  These silicate groups
come together by sharing
oxygen atoms to produce a vari-
ety of structures. In zeolites this
framework of silicates is such as
to produce large cavities
connected by open channels
within the crystal. It is these
holes within the lattice that are
the focus of interest, for they are
large enough to accommodate
small   molecules.   The   best
known use of zeolites has been
as dehydrating agents--the so-
called molecular sieves--which
can effectively filter out and
hold on to water molecules
thereby removing them from
other liquids.
   But not only water molecules
will fit into these cavities. There
is a growing interest in other
"guest" molecules that can be
absorbed by the "host" zeolite.
The chemical transformations
that can then occur are quite
remarkable, making zeolites
some of the most unusual cata-
lysts known. Improved gasoline
yields of up to 25 per cent have
been achieved using them. Even
more exciting is their ability to
convert methanol, CH<i3>iOH, into

high-grade petrol.  Not only
methanol, but also other simple
organic substances such as
esters, ketones and acids can be
converted to hydrocarbon fuels
by zeolites.  Intensive develop-
ment by industry is already
producing results in this area.
This book is a companion to
Professor Barrer's 1978 volume
on <1Zeolites and Clay Minerals>1
<1as Sorbents and Molecular>1
<1Sieves>1 (Academic), and whereas
the earlier work dealt with the
uses of these interesting
substances, this new monograph
deals chiefly with the ways in
which zeolites can be made
synthetically    using   hydro-

thermal proceses. The general
principles behind the method
and the chemical reactions are
explained clearly and concisely.
  Within the open framework
of zeolites, water and other
small molecules, and even the
counter cations, have an
uncanny mobility.  For this
reason, zeolites display some
features in common with such
diverse systems as ion exchange
resins,   semiconductors,    and
aqueous solutions of salts.
        The chemistry behind the
formation of zeolites is still not
clearly understood as Barrer
shows, but he goes on to
elucidate the physical processes
of   nucleation   and    crystal
growth.
     The author then surveys the
current state of the art of zeolite
synthesis and transformation,
and shows how it is possible to
ring the changes among the
component atoms of zeolites--
the silicon and oxygen parts of
the polymeric framework and
the counterbalancing metal ions
can all be changed for other
elements while still preserving
the topology that is the charac-
teristic feature of a zeolite. Even
non-silicon zeolites have been
made by researchers at Union
Carbide in the US.
      Zeolite chemistry has made
remarkable strides forward in
the past few years. Their study is
at the interface of inorganic
chemistry and geochemistry.
The investment of industrial
research  in  this  area    will
undoubtedly    continue       to
uncover further surprises.
   Professor   Barrer's   timely
book has the merit of being
comprehensive  yet     readable,
and beautifully produced.     []


<2Plug-in to publishing>2
-------------------------
International journal of micrographics and video technology
edited by John Teague, <1Pergamon, quarterly, #27.50 pa>1

<2Peter Thomas>2

SINCE the 1850s, when micro-
filming became a practical
possibility, enthusiasts for this
medium have said that it would
eventually replace the printed
book.  In recent years, video
technologists, have made similar
forecasts for their new publish-
ing medium. But all these rather
extravagant claims have had to
be made via the old-fashioned
printed page.  Englands's first
printer, William Caxton, by
contrast, advertised the effec-
tiveness of his products in the
15th century by having notices
for display outside his West-
minster premises produced by
the then new technology of
printing. He could have written
them by hand but this would
have defeated their objective.
It is refreshing, therefore, to
find this new journal devoted to
micrographics and electronic
information transfer is available
as a microfiche at the same time
as the printed version. This is in
line with the publishing policy
of Pergamon and was the case
with <1Micropublishing and>1
<1Current Periodicals>1, a former
Pergamon product which, with
<1Microdoc,>1 the official journal of
the former Micro<1film>1 Associ-
ation of Great Britain (MAGB),
has been incorporated into the
journal under review. MAGB
has, in fact, been resurrected as
the Microform Association of
Great Britain and, unlike its
predecessor, wisely allowed a
commercial publisher to
produce its journal.
  The inaugural issue has,
however, every appearance of
being <1Microdoc>1 with a new cover
and a slightly larger format.
  There are no articles on video
technology, although a handful
of book reviews perhaps indicate
a determination to cover it in
future.  Indeed, the publisher
seems to have recognised these
shortcomings of the first issue,
 and claims that the brief of
the journal is being broadened.
I hope that the new journal,
which purports to be inter-
national in content, will soon
leave behind the rather parochial
views of the former MAGB jour-
nal. Unfortunately, of the seven
articles in the first issue, six are
the work of English practitioners
in micrographics. The news and
events columns also have a
decidedly British bias.        []


<2So now you have a ZX Spectrum>2
---------------------------------

<2Tim Hartnell>2


COMPUTERS often conjure
up images of whirling tapes
on giant machines, or of
bespectacled precocious kids
wrestling with incomprehen-
sible maths.  Three books on
Clive Sinclair's #125 colour
computer, the ZX Spectrum, go
a long way to dispelling both
impressions.
  It seems, according to the
authors of the books, that
computers--especially the spec-
trum--are <1fun.>1 Not just the fun
of zapping Space Invaders, or
defending the Earth from
noxious aliens, but the fun of
challenging the computer to
brain puzzlers.
  The three books which give
this impression of relentless fun
are The ZX Spectrum and how
to get the most out of it (hardly
a winner of the snappy title
award) by Ian Sinclair
(Granada, pp 144, #5.95), and
Easy programming for the
ZX spectrum and Computer
puzzles for spectrum and ZX81
by Ian Stewart and Robin Jones
(shiva, pp 144, #5.95 and pp 64,
#2.50).
<1The ZX Spectrum>1 and <1Easy>1
<1Programming>1 attack the same
problem area--what the hell do
you do once you have unpacked
your computer, tried to under-
stand the manual, and realise it
is written by people who seem to
have forgotten that most of their
readers will be neophytes?
  The ground covered by both
books is,  in the early stages,
fairly similar.  They begin by
explaining how the spectrum
keyboard works. And such an
explanation is needed, believe
me, scarcely a key is free of its
overlay of jargon--RND, STEP
and NOT share keys with
obscure wiggly brackets, slanty
lines and arrows pointing every
which way. And an elaborate
ritual of key preses, in a strict
order, is needed to get a key to
yield the result you demand.
After this the paths taken by the
books change.
  Sinclair tends to race ahead,
in a fairly flat, matter-of-fact
way, covering his ground in a

           confident, but some-
           what un-inspired
           manner.  Little
           suggests Sinclair is
           aware that the reader
           is being lead on a
           path of real discov-
           ery, with genuine
           wonders to uncover.
           The air of general
           "unexcitement" lifts,
           however, in the chap-
           ter which, to me, is
the best in the book, "Roll your
own". "For sheer joy, however,
nothing beats devising your own
programs . . ." he says, and this
is not hyoerbole. He gives good,
solid information in this chap-
ter, suggesting that he felt on
more solid ground when
discussing this topic. "Roll your
own" more than compensates
for the lifelessness of other parts
of the book.
  Stewart and Jones have
produced something extremely
rare--a computer instruction
manual written with verve,
life and humour. Most books
in the beginners'-instruction-
manual genre are flat and
factual, with writing that is
grammatically correct, but with
little awareness that the final
product is intended for living
human beings.  Stewart and
Jones fairly crackle with life. My
only solid criticism of the book
is that the programs are typeset,
rather than--as in Sinclair's
book--being dumped directly

from the computer to the ZX
printer.
   The third book, <1Computer>1
<1Puzzles for Spectrum and ZX81>1
(the ZX81, by the way, is the
#50 black-and-white predeces-
sor to the Spectrum) is a light
book, redolent with Jones/
Stewart humour.  It gives a
collection of puzzles with odd
names ("Tower of Hanoi with
pancakes", "Rooks rampant"
and "Several times knightly", to
mention a few) which will enter-
tain when you are tired of the
"sheer joy" of trying to write
your own programs.
     If you are new to the spec-
trum, and want your informa-
tion presented in a fairly straight
manner, then the Ian Sinclair
book   is   for    you.      The
Stewart/Jones   approach    will
appeal if you like your learning
leavened. Once you have learnt
it all, <1Computer Puzzles>1 will
give you something to run
whenever one of your friends
makes that irritating remark:
"It's very nice. . . but what can
you do with it?"              []


   <2How fares science over the cornflakes?>2


EVEN if we ignore BBC
Breakfast time's un-
supportable decision to support
a diurnal astrologer, the verdict
must be: not too well. Take
Monday last week. Two items of
note.  The briefer was Selina
Scott questioning Lord Soper, in
fine nick on his 80th birthday,
about nuclear power. Splendid.
But as Soper quickly twigged,
what Selina actually meant by
her repeated mention of nuclear
power was nuclear weapons.
   Next, a story lifted from the
<1Daily Mail>1 about Professor
Jerrold    Petrofsky's  work  in
Dayton, Ohio, and the hope it
gave to the paralysed PC Philip
Olds. There were no less than
four components--Selina's
introduction, a filmed report, an
interview     with    journalist
Andrew McEwen, and another
interview with <1Breakfast Time's>1
resident medic, Richard Smith.
Yet only he of the <1British Medi->1
<1cal Journal>1 actually explained
what Petrofsky was trying to
do--stimulating muscles elec-
trically in their natural walking
sequence. Why, then include
waffle    <1(Selina:>1    "Paralysed
people are able to walk again . . ."
<1Smith: "No, that hasn't been>1
done yet . . ." <1Selina:>1 "But it <1is>1 a
  miracle . . .") to confuse the
story line?
       Tuesday saw the launch of
    TV-am's Good morning Britain

and its first shot at
wildlife. A fun item,
it seemed, with a
policeman    vouch-
safing that he had
chased a puma in his
panda car. But there
was worse to come,
with Angela Rippon
(the outdoor girl who
wishes to be known
these days as an incisive
reporter) giving free, uncritical
publicity to somebody called Di
Francis who has written a book
about mysterious, leopard-sized
felines roaming Britain.  How
could she be sure this was a
genuine UK species of big cat,
Ms Rippon asked? Because they
had large paw marks, came the
answer. End of incisive ques-
tioning.
  Wednesday's <1Breakfast Time>1
brought another science story
which, notwithstanding a clutch
of talking heads that included
           Des Wilson of
           CLEAR, left viewers
           more confused than
           before. It concerned
           the toxic effects of
           atmospheric lead and
           was characterised by
           a series of comments
           like "It's claimed that
           even low levels of
           lead can cause braln
damage", "It's been difficult
to get conclusive evidence",
"There's   a   whole   lot   of
evidence", "Yes but there is
conflicting evidence", all deliv-
ered without any one of the four
speakers   actually   providing
figures to explain what the con-
cern and disagreement was all
about.     Even   Anna   Ford
managed to get the UK's posi-
tion <1vis-a\vis>1 the rest of Europe
the wrong way around. Who on
earth is briefing these people?
   Wednesday was an ominous
day, with Claire Rayner,
armchair psychologist, joining
Russell Grant, armchair astrolo-
ger, on the couch. Her topic
was jealousy which she attrib-
uted to parents bringing up chil-
dren to think they are unlovable.
"They're constantly telling them
not to do this and not to do
that," she opined, curiously,
at this most un-authoritarian
time in our history. I have an
awful suspicion that morning
TV here could soon lurch
towards its American counter-
part, with deep daily deliber-
ations about you and your
psyche/milkman/rocking horse/
puma/postman.
   So to Thursday, and the
oddest event of the week. "Now
come on, Richard," Frank
Bough began, "a lot of people
confuse a stroke with a heart
attack. What really is the differ-
ence?"     After   which   the
animated Dr smith talked at
length     and   cogently--about
strokes. Not a single word on
heart attacks, strange.
   Not a promising start, then.
And for the stories coming up
next, as they say, I understand
that <1Good Morning Britain>1 is
hoping to better its big cat tale
by reporting on wild parakeets
in Maidstone, and cats that eat
indoor plants throughout the
country. Wake up Mr Atten-
borough.                       []

<2FORUM>2

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solomon's temple and excavations in Byzantium

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Harrison records a remarkable archaeological discovery in Istanbul

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


A LARGE and sumptuous Byzantine
church, recently discovered in
Istanbul, seems to have been
modelled on biblical descriptions of the
temple of Solomon at Jerusalem.  The
temple had been built in the 10th century
BC as an expression of the Kingship of Solo-
mon in all his glory. It was a building of
extraordinary splendour and lengthy
descriptions <1(I Kings,>1 chapters 6 and 7, and
<1II Chronicles,>1 chapters 3 and 4; compare
<1Ezekiel,>1 chapters 40-43) read like an archi-
tect's specifications for one of the Wonders
of the World. The temple was destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BC
rebuilt, and finally destroyed again by the
Romans in AD 70. But its fame survived,
and Solomon and his temple became for
the Middle Ages symbols of divine kingship
and royal (and indeed heavenly) opulence.
  The Byzantine church in question was
dedicated to St Polyeuktos, an obscure
Early Christian martyr (who is perhaps
only remembered nowadays as the subject
of a tragedy by Pierre Corneill). Until
1960 nothing was known of it except a
handful of historical references and a poem
of 76 hexameter-lines in praise of the
church's founder, Anicia Juliana.The
poem, which had been carved in letters 11
centimetres high on the walls of the church
itself, was copied in a manuscript of the
10th century and is preserved in full in the
<1Palatine Anthology,>1 a medieval collection
of ancient epigrams. In the spring of 1960
municipal workers bulldozing near
Istanbul's city hall churned up several
marble blocks of architectural sculpture.
(Istanbul, you will remember was formerly
Constantinople and before that Byzan-
tium.) Two of the blocks together pre-
served a handful or words from the
poem (promptly recognised by Professor
Ihor Sevc^enko of Harvard University) and
all of them elaborately carved.
  Anicia Juliana was a princess of enor-
mous wealth and distinction. She was born
about AD 460, daughter and granddaughter
of Roman and Byzantine emperors, whose
family had been prominent in Roman poli-
tics for over 700 years. She built the church
as an annexe to her palace in 524-527, in
the reign of Justin I (518-527), and she died

in about 528, soon after the accession of
Justin's nephew Justinian (527-565). A
team drawn mainly from the University of
Newcastle upon Tyne, directed jointly by
the late Dr Nezih Firatli and myself, exca-
vated in Istanbul from 1964 to 1969 for
Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard University's
centre for Byzantine research) and the

Archaeological Museum of Istanbul. In our
annual reports in <1Dumbarton Oaks Papers>1
we have shown something of the extraor-
dinary nature of the church and its deco-
ration and shed much new light on the
period immediately before Justinian. A
bizarre by-product has been the recognition
of various richly decorated fragments of the
church in places as far afield as Barcelona,
Venice, Aquileia, and even Vienna,
presumably carried off to the West as loot
after 1204, by members of the Fourth
Crusade who evidently had an eye for
exotic sculpture. (The full account of the
excavations is to be published next year by
Princeton University Press.)
  Our excavation of the foundations
showed that the church had been a large
one, just under 52 metres (168 feet) square.
Nothing of the walls or vaulting remained
intact, but we found the substructures to be
choked with debris fallen from above,
including several more pieces of the poem
and various richly carved captials, cornices,
and piers. All were of the highest technical
calibre and all displayed an extraordinary
range of exuberant and exotic motifs, For a
few years,  until  Justinian  effectively
eclipsed it by his construction of the church
of St Sophia in 532-537, st Polyeuktos was
evidently the largest and most sumptuous
church in Istanbul (Constantinople).
  The church had been carefully laid out
and constructed, but the basic unit of
measurement had eluded us until Decem-
ber 1982, when Michael Vickers of the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, a former
member of the excavation-team, suggested
that it might be the cubit, and, specifically,
the long cubit. Now the cubit (traditionally
the length of a man's forearm from the
elbow to clenched fist) is the principal unit
of linear measurement in the <1Bible,>1 and
was used too in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It
was incorporated into the later Greek and
Roman systems, whose basic unit was the
foot. There were, moreover, two kinds of
unit, the standard measure of six hand-
breadths and the longer (or royal) cubit of
seven. The common unit measured 0.445
  m and the longer cubit about 0.518 m.
Ezekiel states that the unit for his visionary
temple was "the long cubit which was one
cubit and a hand's breadth," and moreover
that the overall dimensions of the temple
were 100 cubits square. The church of St
Polyeuktos was 51.45 m long and 51.90m.
broad, which, with somc allowance for
error or subsidence, may be regarded as
precisely 100 cubits square.
  The hypothesis that St Polyeuktos was
deliberately modelled on descriptions of
the temple is reinforced by the poem's
explicit claim that Anicia Juliana had "by
her church surpassed the wisdom of
Solomon".  Moreover, the decorative
features of the temple (carvings of palm-
trees, capitals like lilies, capitals festooned
with network, pomegranates, and open
flowers) are all prominent in the repertory
of St Polyeuktos, although they do not
seem to have been current in contemporary
Byzantine sculpture. It seems likely, too,
that several other distinctive features of the
church will eventually be explained by
refercnce to the temple.
  Why did Anicia Juliana attempt to recre-
ate Solomon's temple? She was an aris-
tocrat and woman of royal blood, who had
seen the throne pass in 518 not to her son
(who had married the Emperor Anas-
tasius's daughter), but to an uneducated
provincial, Justin, the illiterate soldier-son
of an Illyrian peasant. Her palace-church,
begun a few years later, was an imperial and
dynastic protest and a declaration of her
own family's higher qualifications for the
throne, as the proud sentences of the poem
inscribed within it make abundantly clear.
That it should have been modelled on the
Temple of Solomon may seem at first sight
presumptuous, but it was an age that
relished allusion, and Solomon, son of
David, was of royal descent, anointed by
Zadok the priest, and <1the>1 king <1par>1
<1excellence.>1
   There was a sequel. Justin died in 527
and was succeeded by his nephew Justi-
nian. In 532 Justinian began the construc-
tion on a breath-taking scale of the imperial
church of Saint Sophia. This was to be half
as large again as St Polyeuktos and was by
contrast restrained in its decoration. St
Sophia still survives and is generally
accepted as onc of the great buildings of
antiquity. It can now be seen as a deliberate
political reaction to the earlier building,
and it is even recorded that on its
completion in 537 Justinian primised God
that he himself had "vanquished Solo-
mon." Had Anicia Juliana been alive at the
time (she died about 528), she would not
have been amused.                      []


<2Somewhere someone wants to hear from you>2

--------------------------------------------

What will the Third World gain from Communications Year?


SOMEWHERE, a telephone rings
twice.
"Hello?"
"Did you know it was World Com-
munications year 1983?"
"Hello? Hello'?"
"I said 'It's World . . .'."
"Hello, is anybody there?"
"World Communications . . ."
Click! Brrrrrr!
   World Communications Year (WCY)
began in January, The United Nations,
whose brainchild the year is, has largely
failed to communicate that WCY is
happening at all, let alone why it is needed.
The year's purpose is to accelerate the
development and provision of national and
international communications. Inundated
by the raging debate on whether we get
umpteen more telly channels via satellite or
cable, you may well say "We have quite
enough information about everything,
thank you."
   Fair point. In the meantime, try making
a telephone call from one African country
to another; you will quite likely be routed
via London and Paris. Post a letter to
another country a few hundred miles along
the West African coast: it will be hand-
sorted in a sorting office at the back of st
Paul's cathedral in London.
   Try, if you are a farmer in a Third World
town, to buy a stamp to send an order for
urgent spare parts: you may be told the post
office has run out of stamps. Imagine what
would happen if "Disgusted of Tunbridge
Wells" couldn't get her first-class mauve at
the local sub-PO. There is a pitifully simple
need for the basic post and telegraph equip-
ment in undeveloped countries like post
offices, postal vehicles, telex, cables and
telephone exchanges, radio stations and
even stamps.
   Coordinators of the WCY, at the
Geneva-based International Telecom-
munications Union (ITU), see the year as
"an opportunity for a quantum leap in the
development of a complete world commu-
nications network, which will leave no one
isolated from his local, national or inter-
national community." The words are likely
to be bolder than the action. Governments
of developing countries give only low
budgets to developing communications.
Western countries for their part have been
slow to respond to appeals for a WCY fund.
Private finance is unlikely to be attracted to
areas where people have little money to
spend.
   The only sizeable donations to WCY so
far have come from the US ($1.4 million)
and West Germany ($ 1.3 million). Britain
is not giving a penny, not even a penny
black!
   The British government says that it
finances nine projects, including a recently
opened satellite station in Nepal, and that it
sees no necessity for a separate fund. Less
than 2 per cent of all overseas aid is going
to improve communications. If developing
countries tap existing sources for money to
improve communications, then there may
be less cash for other projects.
   So the developing countries are caught in
a cleft stick. Mohamed Mili, ITU secretary-
general until the end of 1982, thinks there
are two reasons why the West should help.
Western manufacturers will need to find
new markets in the Third World, he says.
When the West wants to move into these
markets adequate postal and tele-
communications systems will be needed.
   The biggest communications revolution
in the Third World has been radio. One
WCY project that should get under way
concerns appropriate technology for rural
radio broadcasting. Another project, partly
financed by the West Germans, will be a
feasibility study into spreading tele-
communications into remote areas. The
most appropriate technology for many
people will be one that helps a country to
organise a postal system so that stamps are
available, to bring radio within everyone's
reach and that holds out the possibility of
early telephone links.                   []
               <2Silver lining?>2

DEPRESSION brought on by the effect
of overhead power cables is in the news
again. Several victims have appeared on TV
complaining that their lives are ruined
through having to live in the shadow of the
pylons.  Through some unexplained
process, magnetic fields produced by the
electric currents flowing in the cables seem
to induce, say the depressives, the darkest
feelings of gloom and despondency. Medi-
cal experts dismiss the link with the cables,
claiming "it's all in the mind". But how
would they explain the recent experience of
one of our hack's friend. His wife has been
suffering from severe depression, serious
enough for her to be treated as an
outpatient at the local hospital, for some 18
months. A few months ago, the couple
moved out of town to a more rural environ-
ment. To be precise, a former tied cottage,
which was cheap enough to be within their
means for two reasons--it is remote, and it
has a power pylon growing in its back
garden. <2Since>2 their move, the wife has felt
a burden lifted from her shoulders, and has
been restored to her former carefree self.
Ah ha, you say--that's just because she
lives in the country now. So why, then, does
her depression return whenever she
ventures away- from home for more than a
few hours?  It surely seems worth
investigating the possibility that whatever
it is about power lines that flips a normal
brain into depression may flip a depressed
brain back to normality.                []
<2Grave accusations face Lucy finders>2


Jeremy Cherfas on an anthropological row that is spreading from Ethiopia


EARLY MAN may not have been the
competitive, scheming, naked
aggressor we once thought he was,
but those who seek his remains certainly
are.  The latest in a long
history of skirmishes in the
palaeontological world has
blown up into what one
particularly bad press release
describes as "one of the nasti-
est personal and professional
feuds in all of science". The
story is Gordian in its
complexity, but no Alex-
ander seems available to cut
through the tangle of claims,
counterclaims, and down-
right lies.
  At issue are the
marvellously rich fossil beds
of Ethiopia and who should
be allowed into them.
Humanity's birth
probably lies pre-
served somewhere in
those beds, but last
October the govern-
ment of Ethiopia
announced a total
ban on all foreign
expeditions     <1(New>1
<1Scientist>1, 2 Decem-
ber 1982, p 552). The
ban will last until a
special   committee
under the minister
for science and tech-
nology has drawn up
a new set of rules to
control the activities
of foreign research
workers.  In itself this
is a justifiable deci-
sion.  Ethiopia does
not yet have a strong
scientific    commu-
nity, and it would be
criminal if foreign researchers were to plun-
der the material without assisting in the
development of their host's own research
capabilities.  But the personalities of the
fossil hunters involved have ensured that
this protective move by the Ethiopians has
developed into an acrimonious tussle.
   There are many factions, many accusa-
tions. It seems that there are two main
sides. One is personified by Don Johanson,
who put the Ethiopian fossil beds on the
map with his fabulous discoveries of Lucy
and her ilk. With Johanson, who recently
moved to California to be director of his
own Institute of Human Origins, are Tim
White and Desmond Clark, at the Univer-
sity of California at Berkeley. The other
side seems to be led by Jon Kalb, a geologist
at the University of Texas, who was a
member of Johanson's early expeditions
but left shortly after the big discoveries
because of what Kalb calls "disputes . . .
over scientific and management issues".
Caught in the middle are the Ethiopians.
   The ban itself, while it seems to be justi-
fied, appears to be the culmination of an
orchestrated plan by a few Ethiopian
students. The students, who were being
trained by Kalb and others in the US, allege
that the other expeditions had stolen fossils
from Ethiopia, had failed to provide train-
             ing or facilities for Ethi-
             opians, and had made light of
             Ethiopian    culture    and
             customs. Clark and White,
             whose expedition was kicked
             out of the country last
             autumn, say that there is no
             justification to these claims,
             Johanson goes further and
             blames "a campaign by three
             or four people who would
             like to sort of smear our repu-
             tation, to do whatever they
             can".
               Chief among these, of
             course, is Kalb. He has been
             accused of being an agent of
             the CIA, and Ethiopian

security gave him 48 hours to leave the
country in August 1978, but no one has
found any evidence to confirm these
rumours, "I think it's very unlikely that
Ethiopian security would expel somebody
on the basis of baseless rumours," White
says. "If in their judgement he was a CIA
man, that's good enough for me."
While deprecating such tactics as not
     being in the spirit of scientific inquiry,
nevertheless Johanson and others do
quickly get around to innuendos about
Kalb's sources of finance. One such was the
Forge Foundation. "Who's ever heard of
that," Johanson is fond of saying. In fact
the Forge Foundation seems to be a
respectable body, chaired at the time Kalb
got money by a past president of the Amer-
ican Association for the Advancement of
Science.
  In September 1972 Kalb applied to the
Forge Foundation for funds, and in his
application described the geology of the
Hadar region of Ethiopia. He sent a copy of
the application to Johanson. A 1982 paper
by Johanson, Maurice Taieb and Yves
Coppens in the <1American Journal of Physi->1
<1cal Anthropology,>1 which is about the homi-
nid fossils of the Hadar, includes a descrip-
tion of the geology of the region that
matches, virtually word for word, Kalb's
grant application.

   Indeed, Johanson's other writings about
his work in Ethiopia are another source of
offence to Kalb and the Ethiopians. "Many
Ethiopians are . . . especially angry at some
of the things Johanson wrote in his book
<1Lucy">1 says Sleshi Tebedge, one of the Ethi-
opian students who was at Texas with Kalb.
The former dean of the faculty of science at
Addis Ababa University, Tewolde B. G.
Egziabher, adds that in the book Johanson
--makes remarks about Ethiopian politics
and culture and about the behaviour of
officials in government--bribes and igno-
rance and so forth. He should refrain from
making comments on subjects he knows
little about."

   This is an interesting remark, because the
British edition of <1Lucy>1 differs from the
American in key passages that deal with
Kalb and officialdom. These differences
include the original step, for a work of
avowed non-fiction, of changing words
                      within quotation
                      marks. In the British
                      edition a minister
                      to whom Johanson
                      spoke wonders if an
                      "official .  . . acted
                     improperly in any
                     way" in giving Kalb a
                     research permit.  In
                     the US edition he
                     wonders if "this man
                     . . . has been bribed or
                     has used improper
                     influence in any
                     way".  Quite apart
                     from the doubts it
                     casts on the multi-
                     tude of extensive
                     verbatim passages in
                     Johanson's engaging
                     account, this and
                     other changes make
                     one wonder whether
                     legal evidence has
                     become a considera-
tion in reporting scientific expeditions.
  Another episcde that angers the Ethi-
opians is that of the human knee. After
finding a fossil knee, Johanson needed a
modern knee for comparison.  Despite
some misgivings, he persuaded Tom Gray
to accompany him on a wander to a nearby
burial ground, Lying on top of a heap of
bones, "almost asking to be taken, was a
femur. Tom took it. We looked around.
There was no one in sight. Tom put the
bone in his shirt and carried it back to
camp". That's the story according to <1Lucy.>1
But on 17 January, 1983, days after the
story of the ban and recriminations had
been published in an article in <1Science,>1
Johanson told a class at Stanford Univer-
sity a different story. "I really did want a
femur", he said. "There was this graveyard.
I talked to some of the people around there
because I didn't want to get into trouble.
They said it was an old grave, nobody
knows who's it is. There were bones all over
the place. We went out there and we looked
at the bone, we compared the bone and we
returned that bone." Which to believe?
  Tim White casts doubts on Kalb's ability
to discharge his undertakings to care for the
material he had collected. One example is
the Bodo skull, which created a stir last year
when White described cut marks around it
that were consistant with the owner of the
skull having been scalped. "Clark and I
looked at the thing for five minutes and we
        said "Wow'", White told <1New Scientist.>1
"What are all there cut marks? And that
was before the skull had been cleaned. Kalb
had it for years and never saw the marks."
   So the accusations fly.  The ban has
allowed Johanson to embroil himself in
controversy, something he relishes, and the
controversy has confirmed that there is
much more to palaeo-anthropology than
old bones. But the real effects are hard to
judge. Of course, the fossil hunters will lose
all the bones that will erode from the hill-
sides with no one to see them re-emerge
into daylight. But that has been happening
for hundreds of years. White says that there
are several Ethiopian graduate students
working for higher degrees; they will not
now be able to work with Ethiopian mate-
rial, he says, and this will be detrimental to
them and the development of Ethiopian
palaeontology. He also points out that the
expedition led by himself and Clark had
assembled "the best people, worldwide, and
the top people can't afford to stand around
for a couple of years waiting for research to
happen". They will go off to other projects,
he fears, and the Ethiopians, in common
with the rest of us who want to understand
our origins, will be the losers.            []

<2Long live science education!>2

--------------------------------

Eric Deeson is dismayed by a report on school science

-----------------------------------------------------


"REAL TEACHERS" I define as
those working in a busy school,
facing unimagined shortages in all
kinds of resources. The sort who bore you
at cocktail parties. The people least likely to
be able to find #24-95 to buy the first set of
reports on science teaching from the
Assessment Performance Unit (APU) of
the Department of Education and
science*, the latest volume of which has
just been published. Not that many real
teachers have heard of the APU.
  That said, the lengthy process of survey-
ing the science performance of 11-, 13- and
  15-year-olds, undertaken by the APU in
  1980, surely involved real teachers. Perhaps
there were some among the good number,
nominated by the local science advisers,
who administered the practical tests and
marked the papers. It is possible, too, that
one or two of the people overseeing the
survey may occasionally have talked to real
teachers about the project's objectives and
methods. Possible.
  I <1can>1 be sure that real teachers would
have avoided a number of APU's blunders.
They would not allow "battery" as a correct
name for the symbol in Figure 1. They
would allow, however, a "lamp" as a
correct name for the symbol in Figure 2. A
real teacher is unlikely to use an instruction
like this, for 11-year-olds: "Find three ways
in which you can tell from the drawings (of
spider and crane fly) that they are the same
as each other and three ways in which they
are different." Certainly he or she would
exclude illustrations less than adequate for
use with children, but not economise on
full stops in practical worksheets.
  I could go on exposing APU's lack of

imagination. Real teachers with real kids
have to take care with written commu-
nication.  Vocabulary, use of complex
sentence structures and passive voice, word
and sentence lengths--all such aspects of
language are also aspects of science teach-
ing and, surely therefore, of testing.
  In that the APU science surveys involved
almost 40 000 guinea-pigs, the examples I
give are not nit-picking. With the certainly

massive costs of the exercise (just how high
they were I have not discovered) it is a pity
to feel a little uncertain about the validity of
the work.
   The validity of the APU science
outcomes, however, must be examined in a
much wider context than that of the
language of assessment alone. That context
must include the aims of science education
in Britain <1vis a/ vis>1 the aims of
the APU. It is clear that the
APU agonised greatly on
just <1what>1 to assess under
the umbrella word "science"
--and <1how>1 to assess it. The
APU's brief includes "to seek
to identify the incidence of
under achievement" and "to
identify significant differ-
ences of achievement related
to the circumstances in
which children learn". In other words, what
are the areas of weakness in science teach-
ing, and why?
   Turn then, to the indexes of the books, to
find keywords related to those objectives.
Oh, no indexes. The "Contents", then, for
the standard "summary of conclusions"?
None. The preface of each of the three
books, obviously an APU plug-in module,
reveals the secret. "The authors invite
discussion on the interpretation of the
survey results, but at this stage do not them-
selves draw conclusions from the results.
We hope that those to whom this report is
addressed--educationalists, parents, and
those concerned with the provision of
resources centrally and locally [but not real
teachers?]--will consider how far the stan-
dards of peformance revealed, are accept-
able. . . . It would be unwise to draw firm
conclusions on the strength of the results of
a single survey."
  Well, what kind of fool would I be, in a
piece of this length, to summarise the
results in any meaningful fashion? They
provide backing for such shattering conclu-
sions as the following:
* Older pupils do better at given questions
than do younger ones.
* Some pupils study more science than
others.
* Independent schools have better
resources than state schools.
* Boys and girls achieve similarly.
* Southern pupils do a lot better than
Northern ones.
* Deprivation correlates with poor
performance.
      Glancing back through what I have
              written so far, I detect more
              than a note of cynicism. Not
              that I mean to be cynical, but
              I <1do>1 teach in an inner-city
              school (where only Advanced
              Level pupils have textbooks
              --and they share--and where
              practical work involves half-
              a-dozen to a bunsen). What
              the APU science teams have
              assessed is actually a fairly
              forward-looking kind of
school science, but it is still of little rele-
vance or interest to very many youngsters
in Britain. That saddens me. []
<2A frank and friendly hand>2

<2Tam Dalyell on political gestures>2

CONSTITUENTS and non-politicians
tend to ask members of parliament
an inordinate number of questions
about their relations with each other. I
suppose it is an easily understood curiosity
about the behaviour of those in the public
eye. What do you think of so-and-so? Is he
really like that? How do you get on with
him?
 Collectively politicians tend to be pretty
awful. I am in no doubt about the dreadful
impression that the broadcasting of Prime
Minister's Question Time has created. We
portray ourselves as a rabble, and certainly
are no example to the fourth form in a
school.  Shouting (euphemistically called
"atmosphere") is part of the British system
of politicking; indeed, in 1945, a conscious
decision was made that it should remain so.
The Chamber of the House of Commons
was damaged by bombs during the Second
World War and when deciding whether it
should be rebuilt as it was originally, or
along the lines of the Houses of Parliament
in Ottawa and elsewhere in the Common-
wealth ("one representative: one desk"),
Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee,
with other senior politicians, plumped for
the old ways--and the old ways were those
of adversarial politics. The benches seat
400 MPs at the most. On a big occasion 600
or so are crammed in. The crush can gener-
ate "pressure" on ministers, and affect the
elusive "mood of the House" that MPs like
to interpret as the will of the nation. But
apart from the "big" occasion, Question
Time and set-piece debates often descend
into ya-boo situations.
   Individually, members of parliament are
much less unattractive than they are
collectively. Our relations are more adult
and friendly than those of many academic
staff rooms that I have seen. Real enemies
tend to be confined (where they exist at all)
to colleagues in one's own party. I suppose
this is natural because of potential rivalry
for office, a feeling generalised with people
of another political party.
     British politicians tend to treat one
another in a studiedly off-hand way. When
I was a member of the European Asembly,
we were forever shaking hands with our
European colleagues of all nationalities--
and it was expected.  British politicians
seldom shake hands, as becomes a less
formal society. Chairmen of Select
        Committees of the House of Commons
normally remain in their places when
Permanent   Secretaries   or  other   dis-
tinguished witnesses are brought before
their committees.
     I had a strange sensation when, on an
autumnal Friday afternoon, I turned up at
Old Admiralty Building, to have a <1viva>1
<1voce>1 on my written evidence to the
  Falklands Inquiry. The surroundings were
wholly out of keeping with the importance
of the people there and the nature of their
task. I suppose what I was asked and what
I said in reply will be subject to the "30 year
rule"--and heaven knows what any archi-
vist will make of it all in the year 2012! He
will probably judge that it was a freak of
history. I was one of the few --non-official"
witnesses at the inquiry into what I trust is
the last colonial war that Britain will ever
fight.
   As I entered the committee room from
the standard uncarpeted passage, I was
given a friendly and businesslike hand-
shake by the chairman, Lord Franks, who
had courteously got out of his chair to greet
his witness--an unfailing politeness that I
gather he extended to every other witness. I
was nonplussed. It was a bit different from
the sort of behaviour that, as I say, I have
become accustomed to.
  What to do? Well, I could not simply
shake the chairmnan by the hand so warmly
proferred. I had butterflies in my stomach
enough and I had to do something, so I
grabbed the nearest paw, which belonged to
Merlyn Rees.
  I should mention that Merlyn and I have
been parliamentary colleagues and friends
for nearly 20 years, since he was elected by
the same people of south Leeds who had
sent Hugh Galtskell to the House of
Commons.  I realised I had never ever
shaken his hand before, MPs do not do that
sort of thing. "Pressing flesh", as Lyndon
Johnson once put it, was foreign to me and
to Merlyn. We both understood that we
were in an extraordinary situation. So did
Harold Watkinson, the next on the circuit,
and all the others. Being examined by half
a dozen people, half of whom one has
known extremely well, is what Margaret
Mead, the anthropologist, would have
termed a "bizarre group situation". Still,
the absence of handshakes does not mean
there is no physical contact among poli-
ticians. They have developed the pleasant
habit of touching each other on the
shoulder in time of trouble, as a sort of
physical sympathy.
  Of course, physical contact is not the
only evidence of camaraderie. There is,
and it is very important, a joking
relationship, not unlike that in the armed
forces and elsewhere. It releases tension and
we need it. Members of Parliament are
human after all.
  Most of us, though, have learnt to beware
the double handshake: hand clasped and
hand on arm, all at once, It was a beguiling
technique perfected 50 years ago by Adolf
Hitler when he gained the chancellorship of
Germany.

  It has become an ingratiatory sign.
  Clearly, handshaking is a symbol of
declared friendship and is intended to put
one at one's ease. But what, I ask myself,
are its social and biological origins? What is
the significance of its absence in the
behaviour of the British political animal?
Handshaking would make a splendid topic
for research if the necessary funds could be
found. Come to think of it, so would golden
handshaking, and surely that is topical!
Shame on you Sir Keith Joseph for your
negative and unkind attitudes to the social
sciences.                                []
<2European space master>2

<2Who will next direct ESA?>2

THE MAN responsible for Britain's
contribution to the Concorde pro-
gramme is this country's candidate for the
top job at the European space Agency
(ESA), which becomes vacant in a year's
time. The Concorde post, which observers
have unkindly suggested should disqualify
the incumbent from any positions of
responsibility in the future, was held
between 1966 and 1970 by Sir James
Hamilton, who holds down today a key
position within the bureaucracy of the
Department of Education and science.
   Sir James, who is due to retire shortly,
could take over from May 1984 the task of
director general of ESA, the organisation
that coordinates the space activities of 11
West European nations. The advantages of
this job include a lucrative salary, a nice
office in Paris and unlimited opprtunities
to watch the agency's Ariane rocket take off
(or, as happens more often, crash to the
ground) from Guyana one of the less
pleasant parts of South America.
   But all may not go Sir James's way. For
one thing, Erik Quistgaard, the present
incumbent, does not want to go. The Dane,
though shy and retiring and lacking a sense
of humour, has knitted together a unified
policy for the agency, which spends every
year some #400 million of European
taxpayers' money. The odd lapse with
Ariane apart, the agency is seen as being
technically as advanced as
National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-
tration in many key areas of space tech-
nology.
   Quistgaard, who has bought a plush
house in the south of France, is fighting to
stay on after his four-year term runs out
next year. In his favour is the attitude of the
wily French, who control the strings of
most aspects of Europe's space policy.
France would like its own "Mr Space",
Hubert Curien of the French space agency
CNES, to take over the reigns of ESA when
he retires in a couple of years. Keeping
Quistgaard in position until then would
help this strategy.
   Also acting against Britain's interests is
that the previous director general before
Quistgaard hailed from these isles. This was
Roy Gibson, a smoothie from the old
school of diplomacy, whose chief attribute
was that he spoke several European
languages. On the grounds that Britain had
a good stab at the job last time round,
observers feel that a German or Frenchman
should get first refusal if Quisigaard can be
eased out.                              []
<2LETTERS>2
<2Surprising statements>2
I was most surprised to note the
comments of the MoD
spokesman in the story
"Scientists fight for full survey of
A-test deaths" (This Week, 27
January, p 219).
  I was stationed on Christmas
Island for the British Megaton
Trials during 1957-59 and was
present for three H-bomb tests. I
was responsible for the nursing
services, Royal Air Force Hospital,
Christmas Island, providing a
service for all Her Majesty's
Forces, civilian scientific officers,
Fijian Army detachments and the
Gilbertese natives.
  Not until the third bomb (the
one that exploded at too low an
altitude) were we were issued
with anti-flash suits and goggles.
<1At no time were we issued with>1
<1radiation monitors,>1 yet we were
only 24 miles from grounds zero.
<1A. Johnson>1
<1Darlington. Co. Durham>1

<2Radiation survey>2
Your item on surveys of
personnel at the British nuclear
weapons tests (This Week 27
January, p 219) is seriously
misleading and in at least one
respect factually incorrect. The
information about the use of
control groups and the healthy
worker effect was known to your
reporter before he spoke to
me--it is common knowledge.
  Contrary to your account,
there has never been a
disagreement between the
National Radiological Protection
Board and the Ministry of
Defence about this or about the
general form of possible surveys.
The impression you gave that I
provided your reporter with new
information following the meeting
is totally false.
  I categorically deny the two
other statements attributed to me
in quotation marks: particularly
that which implies that I ihink
the doses must have been higher
than those reported by the MoD.
This is a question on which I do
not vet have a view. Indeed I
am not aware that MoD has yet
reported any doses. The existence
of ill effects has not yet been
established and only when, or if,
it is will the question of
causation be relevant.
<1J. A. Reissland>1
<1National Radiological Protection>1
  <1Board>1
<1Didcot, Oxon>1

<2Breast milk>2
Your report on the Marketing of
"infant formula" milks gave an
incomplete picture (This Week, 20
January, p 143). The 1981 WHO
international code of marketing of
breast-milk substitutes is not
intended to <1curb>1 the use of these
products; its aim is clearly set
down as follows: "to contribute to
the provision of safe and adequate
nutrition for infants by the
protection and promotion of
breast-feeding, and by ensuring the
proper use of breast-milk
substitutes, when these are
necessary, on the basis of adequate
information and through
  appropriate marketing and
  distribution".
  Also, it is not a regulation
involving bans and prohibitions, it
is a recommendation to member
states io implement the aims and
principles in a way appropriate to
their national circumstances.
  In the UK, a report
commissioned by the Office of
Population Censuses and Surveys
of the Department of Health and
Social Security issued in May 1982
and entitled <1Infant Feeding 1980>1
shows that, the initiation and
maintenance of breast-feeding have
increased significantly since 1975.
  It is the UK government's view
that the provisions contained in
the draft FMF code of practice,
which was drawn up in full
consultation with DHSS and
MAFF, and the DHSS circular to
professional people working in
child care, together fulfil its
undertaking to implement the aims
and principles of the WHO code.
<1Heather Paine, Secretary>1
<1Infant and Dietetic Foods Section>1
  <1Food Manufacturess' Federation>1
<1London WC2>1

<2Fowl stones>2
Regarding the article "Magnetism
and the standing stones" (Forum,
  13 January, p 105), it seems clear
to us that such stone circles were
  of great practical importance to
their constructors.

  Stone-age man would have
noticed that birds navigating by
means of the magnetic properties
of the ley lines together with the
visual cues thereon, became
disorientated at certain points
(multiple ley-line intersections).
This phenomenon they used to
their advantage by constructing net
traps at such points which caught
the confused fowl as they fluttered
down to Earth.
  The stones that we see today are
therefore the remains of the
supports that once held the nets in
position.
<1L. Gomulski>1
<1M. Rowland>1
<1London School of Hygiene>1
  <1and Tropical Medicines>1
<1London WC1>1


<2In the soil>2
In our article "The secret life of the
soil (Monitor, 2 December 1982
p 564) we commented that the
annual input of carbon into a
particular soil under wheat was
remarkably low, considering the
size of the soil microbial biomass.
Gordon Lines suggests that we
might be underestimating the
carbon input by omitting carbon-
fixation by algae and
photosynthetic bacteria (Letters, 23
December, 1982, p 857). These
organisms are indeed active in our
site--they have been found to
contribute about 25 kilograms of
nitrogen per hectare per year io
this wheat crop.
  However, the figure we gave for
the annual input of carbon into the
soil (1.2 tonnes of carbon per
hectare per year) <1include>1 the
carbon contributed by algae and
photosynthetic bacteria. This input
was calculated from the increased
specific activity of carbon found in
the soil after the bomb tests.
  These tests increased the
quantity of carbon- 14 in the
atmosphere and hence in all
photosynthetic material. Thus, as
this material decomposed, a pulse
of carbon-14 entered the soil
organic matter, causing in
apparent decrease in the radio-
carbon age of the soil organic
matter. Measurement of the
relative abundance of carbon- 14 in
both pre- and post-bomb soil
samples and in the atmosphere
gives us an estimate of the amount
of carbon entering the soil each
year as a result of photosynthesis
by both higher plants <1and>1
microorganisms.
<1Phil Brookes>1
<1Rothamsted Experimental Station>1
<1Harpenden>1


<2Pills take the biscuit>2
I could not swallow pills until I
realised that it was a psychological
problem ("Sticky pills") Monitor,
13 January, p 88). The mind does
not expect a swallow until after a
chew so now I chew a small piece
of biscuit and then pop in the
Paracetamol and swallow without
difficulty.
<1G. H. Chase>1
<1Welwyn Garden City>1
ARIADNE
------------------------------------------


IT OCCURS to me that it might be as
  well to quote the time related charges or
TRC that British Telecom should apply in
making up bills for work, following last
week's item. There can be no secret about
them, for British Telecom says in its
instructions, "The customer may be told
the hourly charge rate", though whether he
will be told if he does not ask is another
matter. Besides, the instructions also say,
"The preparation of estimates giving
manhours for a job should be avoided",
which hardly appears obliging or informa-
tive. It seems to me that anyone having a
job done should take careful note of the
hours worked, or spent, on it and how
many men are employed, or, at least, on the
spot.
  Normally, the rates are #19.50 for the
first halt hour and for each additional quar-
ter of an hour or part of it, #4.50, For week-
day overtime the rates go up to #23.80 and
#5.45, for Saturday overtime, #24.70 and
#5.65, Sunday overtime, #31.70 and #7.15
and for Bank holiday overtime, #37.00 and
#8.25.
  If a job starts in normal hours and runs
into overtime, that time should be charged
at the quarter hour rate. That means that
the first half hour rate does not, or should
not, apply.  Even if a job spreads over
several days, thw first half hour rate should
be charged on the first day and not on the
others.
  It is some time since I have had any work
done by British Telecom, so I do not
remember whether hills are presented in
detail. It would be a good idea to ask for
details if they are not supplied.
                                  []
  IN THE past 70 years or so, according to
my far from faultless memory, there has
been a reversal of the cowboys and Indians
convention.  I remember small boys all
wanting to be cowboys and the role of Indi-
ans having to be forced on the smaller ones.
Nowadays, nobility is on the side of those
who used to be called Redmen, hardly
surprising to anyone who has read any of
the dreadful history of the spread of Euro-
peans across the West. What richness of
tribal tradition and history was lost in the
process is a depressing thought,
  But something has been saved from
extinction.  A story from New York's
Columbia University says that it has,
preserved in its library, 10 000 pages of
Tsimshian history, legend and mythology.
The Tsimshians are an Alaskan tribe. Early
in this century, a half-Tsimshian called
William Benyon (he would have been
called a "half-breed" in the contemporary
books of my childhood), interviewed all the
tribal elders he could find and wrote their
stories down. He sent them to a famous
anthropologist at the university, who gave
them to the library.
  Now, an Indian community in Alaska
has started to print the material.  Two
paperbacks of 40 folk tales have appeared
and are local bestsellers. Two more books
are planned and there is enough material
for five more.
  The manuscripts from which the books
have been compiled are written in English
and in Beynon's own phoneticised version
of the Tsimshian language. To someone
such as I, who had the vague but tenacious
idea that Indians communicated in pictures
only, a fragile method, it is pleasant to see
that one scholar of native American
languages calls the manuscripts "the largest
corpus of texts" of them and --a remarkable
resource".                               []

A LETTER reproves me for singling out
rotten spelling in other places, notably
<1The Guardian,>1 and goes on to point out
that this magazine is not immune.
  Sometimes the sound of breaking glass is
distressing in this office as another
hurled stone goes through from inside. It is
amazing how often you (well I) can be
caught out on the very point you are trying
to make. For example, the first issue
appearing after I poked fun at <1The Guard->1
<1ian>1 for spelling septic as "sceptic" had an
article that spelt aseptic as "asceptic".
Down came another few panes in the glass-
house. It is probably the result of dealing so
much with science.
  Another rap came in the post for a wrong
spelling of Marshal as in Marshal of the
Royal Air Force. It appeared as --marshall".
   Baffling, this, because it was right on the
copy. There is, as anyone in the racket
knows, a kind of trap between the printer
and the writer that will box things up if
possible, in spite of the best efforts on both
sides.
  While I am about it, I had better apolo-
gise on behalf of a contributor, who was
castigated by post for not looking up the
meaning of a phrase that was, to him,
mysterious.  It was "a-taunto". It would
have been easy to track down, as a some-
what acidulous correspondent explained
during a few remarks on the shortcomings
of journalists. Guilty as charged. []
THERE has been some correspondence
going on, it seems, in the American
journal, <1Business Week>1 about the savings
to be made by discouraging smoking at
work, William L. Weis, who is associate
professor of accounting at Seattle Univer-
sity, lists them. "Here's richness!", in the
words of Wackford Squeers.
  There is nothing to be gained by trans-
lating dollars into pounds in this story any
more than doing it in a bank, so the money
is untouched. Weis says that each year and
per smoker, over $350 can be saved. But
that is the beginning. If you do not only
frown on smoking but hire only non-
smokers from now on you can, he main-
tains, save $5000 a year per smoker in the
long run.  The savings come from less
absenteeism, lower insurance costs, more
productivity, fewer deaths (Weis calls this
"much lower rates of worker mortality"),
not so much deterioration in furniture,
carpets and so on, including office
machines, less maintenance and less spent
on air-conditioning and heating.
  I think there must be a period for a start
when the office or elsewhere is a bit on the
nervous and inefficient side as smokers are
deprived, but he does not mention this. []

LAST WEEK, Daedalus presented a
scheme for making cars blow a foamy
exhaust. He is now extending this tech-
nology to human beings. Our lungs are
always moist, and exude a special surfac-
tant to aid their expansion. So he reasons
that a foam blown with this natural surfac-
tant could be effortlessly breathed.
  Foam-breathing would have many uses,
beginning with the use of oxygenated foam
for instant well-being. Without clumsy
pipes and masks, it would be delightful to
blow a big mass of oxygen foam from the
DREADCO dispenser, and bury one's face
in it. (The natural surfactant, being isotonic
with body fluids, will not sting the eyes like
soap foam.) Similarly, the inhalation of
anaesthetics, bronchial sprays, tobacco
smoke and so on could become a simple
matter. In particular, foam-breathing could
make smoking a less anti-social habit, and
more economical to boot.  A pipe or
cigarette burns all the time, and just wastes
smoke when the user is not drawing on it.
The DREADCO autopipe will store up its
smoke as a long-lasting foam, to be inhaled
at pleasure. The user would breathe out in
big bubbles and these could be caught in a
"bubble tray", preventing suffering for
non-smokers nearby.
  But Daedalus wonders what breathable
foam would be like as a total environment.
Rather sensuous, he concludes. You could
not see or hear very far through it, but it
would be quite a supportive, cocooning
medium--foams can be very viscous. It
would be warm, insulating, and cleansing
as well, forming a private and delightful
world.  DREADCO's proposed "Public
Foam Baths" should provide the tradi-
tiona Turkish bath with strong
competition.  In more serious vein,
Daedalus suggests using breathable foam to
ventilate coal mines. Its ability to trap dust,
the ease with which stale and fresh foam
can be kept separate without mutual
diffusion, and the barriers it offers to the
spread of flame or explosion, are all points
in its favour. []