<2Cruise to destruction>2 FOR ONCE the Easter demonstrations organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament have some- thing concrete and immediate to oppose. The protests will focus on NATO's plans to site 160 cruise missiles in Britain. The weapons will start to arrive in December; they are supposed to match the arms build up by the Soviet Union. If tens of thousands of people are prepared to take to the streets and to camp outside obscure air-force bases for months on end, what will they do when cruise becomes a reality? The key political point about cruise is its high visibility. Until now nuclear weapons, in the West at least, have remained hidden from the public gaze, in closely guarded silos or inside aircraft and submarines. The cruise missile is very different. In a real war the missiles would leave their bases for launch sites in wooded areas of the coun- tryside (see p 878). The bases are at Green- ham Common in Berkshire, and Moles- worth in Cambridgeshire. Each "flight" of 16 weapons requires a convoy of 22 vehi- cles supported by a small army of tech- nicians and soldiers. During peacetime, the convoys will emerge periodically from their hiding places for practice runs in which only the warheads of the missiles will be dummies. In every other respect, the manoeuvres will mimic what would happen during World War III, adding a novel experience for anyone out for a drive on Sunday afternoon during a practice run. The US Air Force will control the missiles in Britain. The USAF will not say how often its charges will go out for a spin along the byways of central England. If each "flight" practices in this fashion once every six months, that means that 20 times a year Britain's military forces will face a massive security problem. The visibility of the new missiles will force us to think more acutely about nuclear weapons and why, or whether, the world needs them. Even now Michael Heseltine, Britain's Secretary of State for Defence, is at pains to point out that the installation of cruise need not go ahead (see p 885). In Mr Heseltine's view, the weapons are a bargaining chip in the cat- and-mouse game of negotiations on arms reduction between the US and USSR. If the Soviet Union agrees to remove its new and threatening SS-20 missiles, which could strike at virtually all of Europe from east of the Urals, then NATO would abandon cruise. Of course, it makes sense to negotiate from strength. It has been the strategy of every army and power-seeker since Genghis Khan. But what is not credible about the cruise strategy is that, simply, the weapon is far too dangerous to do the job for which, according to the military, it is intended. NATO's commanders say that the missiles are there to deter, to prove to the Soviet Union that the West can knock out ports, factories and other "strategic" targets with pinpoint accuracy. According to this thinking, cruise missiles are not primarily for killing people. Why, then, does each missile carry a bomb ten times as powerful as that which devastated Hiroshima? If deterrence really is the name of the game, then, so it would seem, the missiles that NATO already deploys in submarines add up to a threat to soviet cities and centres of industry that is more than sufficient. The US, which is paying about $4 million for each missile, rightly points out, and sometimes ruefully, that the nations of Western Europe asked for the weapon to be deployed in the first place. This refers to the decision of the NATO countries in Decem- ber 1979, when Europe more or less begged the US to act as its protector. For the US there is still time, through the negotiations in Geneva, to display a flexible attitude and to bring about at least a reduc- tion in the number of SS-20s, and hence to reduce the need for cruise. As for the rest of NATO, the cause of world peace, not to say sanity, would be served if these countries were to look back to the decision of 1979 and to admit, even to themselves, that they were wrong. [] <2Military science>2 THERE should be excitement leading eventually to excitation in the scientific community following President Reagan's statement last week of his faith in science and scientists. ln particular, it seems, Mr Reagan wants some neat new laser weapons to zap The Reds. Some scientific "wets" will not want to soil their hands with "blocd money"; but in these days of financial stringency, every professor owes it to his department to get in there and pitch for Pentagon pennies. Just think, you could equip a whole new physics laboratory. Didn't an earlier boom in laser weaponry produce some very nice apparatus? Is it really relevant that most of that military money produced not a single weapon? Does it really matter that those were early days, when the joke on campus was that the only way to kill anyone with a laser was to hit them over the head with it? Alright, so some high-powered commit- tees have dismissed the idea of death rays, but that was before Star Wars showed that it can be done. If President Reagan wants some shiny new lasers, let him have them. Don't worry about some Strangelove of a character turning your innocent little toy into a satellite vaporiser, theory has it that military research is second rate because you cannot do good research behind screens of secrecy and away from the cut and thrust of peer review. So come on physicists: be coherent; get into a truly excited state. Take the money and run. You can relax into a less energetic state after the cash has arrived. No military man is going to risk trouble on campus by complaining--and he probably won't understand what you are up to anyway. If you really want to be devious, you could spend the money on a particle accelerator. Think of it, W-particles as a death ray. Has a sort of ring to it, doesn't it, and not much less sensible than President Reagan's suggestions. [] <2THIS WEEK>2 <2Polonium cloud engulfs Windscale>2 A RADIOACTlVE cloud that drifted across Britain after a fire at the Wind- scale nuclear factory in Cumbria in 1957 may have killed hundreds of people. That is the claim made today by John Urquhart of Newcastle University in an article in <1New>1 <1Scientist>1 (p 873). His claim is disputed by the National Radiological Protection Board, Britain's independent nuclear watchdog, which says that Urquhart has used outdated figures. The new ingredient in the assessment of how many deaths the Windscale cloud caused is the radioactive isotope, polonium 210. This virulent emitter of alpha radiation was a vital part of the British hydrogen bomb. It was produced in the Windscale pile (whose main purpose was to transform uranium into plutonium for the bomb) by irradiating bismuth. The published version of the official report of the fire, written by Lord Penney, the father of the British bomb, made no mention of polonium. The report had been heavily censored "in the national interest". Until <1New Scientist>1 asked the NRPB to re- examine its assessment of the fire last week, to take account of the polonium, no official body had tried to calculate the effect of its release. Earlier this year the NRPB published a "complete description of the radiological impact of the fire" in which it considered 41 isotopes released in the fire. But polo- nium was not mentioned. This week NRPB staff said privately that they were angry that nobody had told them of their gaff. In fact, their own chairman, John Dunster, presented a paper to a United Nations session on atomic power in 1958 in which he revealed that some polonium had been released. He did not quantify it. Polonium was discovered by Marie Curie in natural uranium. The US and Britain used it as an "initiator" to start the chain reaction at the heart of their first atomic bombs, according to an official history by Margaret Gowing. Until that history was published, in 1974, nobody had publicly admitted that polonium was either produced at Windscale or used in the bomb. The question now raised is whether, to protect the weapons programme, the scale of the accident at Windscale was covered up. After the fire, the pressure to maintain production of polonium at the second (unscathed) Windscale pile would have been intense. The first British H-bomb test had been carried out in May that year and seven further tests at Christmas Island in the Pacific followed in the next year. Polonium was then an irreplaceable part of the bomb. But it has a half-life of just 140 days so there can be little delay manufacture and its incorporation into a bomb. Polonium was found on air filters set up to monitor the Windscale cloud in Harwell, Oxfordshire and in the Netherlands. Urquhart has extrapolated from this the likely radioactive release of polonium. He puts it at 370 curies (the NRPB now guesses at 150 curies). Urquhart then plugs this figure into an assessment of the health effects of polonium that was made by the NRPB itself in a report on the radiological impact of coal-fired power stations. This produces a figure of perhaps 1000 deaths. The NRPB this week dismissed that figure. The Board says that a new assessment of the polonium impact puts the risk at only one hundredth of its previous estimate. The NRPB says this is because of new findings that the livers of cows grazing near coal-fired stations do not appear to accu- mulate polonium. Urquhart says the board's new figures cannot be assessed until the research on which it is based is published in full. [] <2New VD microbes discovered>2 TWO COMPLETELY new organisms have been discovered that are thought to be impor- tant contributors to the ever-increasing problem of sexually-transmitted disease--in particular so-called "non-specific genital infections". They may attack 30000 men each year in Britain. The classic sexually- transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhoea and syphilis have remained stable since the mid 1970s. But non- specific genital infections (affecting both men and women) have increased, rapidly reaching an alarming 132 391 cases in 1981. There were 80 000 cases of non- gonococcal urethritis (NGU) reported in Britain in 1979. This category of sexually- transmited disease affects only men, and it ; is here that the two new microbes may be implicated. NGU is characterised by frequent and painful urination, and discharges contain- ing pus. Treatment is straightforward, but one person in 10 will super chronic and persistent infection. Dcctors do not know why. Half the cases of NGU are caused by the bacterium <1Chlamydia>1 <1trachomatis>1 and another 20 per cent by infection with a mycoplasma called <1Ureaptasma urealyticum.>1 What causes the remaining 30 per cent of cases of NGU has until now been a mystery. Mycoplasmas are the smallest free-living micro- organisms known to man are are usually difficult to culture in the laboratory. But now Dr David Taylor- Robinson of the Medical Research Council's CIinical Research Centre in Harrow believes he has isolated a hitherto unknown species of mycoplasma, which he has called <1Mycoplasma genitalium>1 (see figure). Out of 16 men with NGU, Taylor- Robinson found that 25 per cent were infected with <1M. genitalium.>1 In addition to the mycoplasma, Taylor- Robinson thinks he may have found a new anaerobic bacterium (one that cannot live in the presence of oxygen) which also seems to be associated with NGU. Of 64 men with NGU, half were infected with the bacte- rium; compared with one out of seven men with gonococcal urethritis and four out of 30 controls. [] <2Blacklisted vitamins on sale in Britain>2 A "DIETARY supple- ment" known as B15, that is regarded as potentially dangerous by US health authorities, is still on sale in West Germany and Britain, says the EEC's environment commissioner, Hans Narjes. Another potentially-lethal "vitamin", B17 or laetrile, is no longer on sale in Europe, say the EEC. But New <1Scientist>1 purchased tablets containing B15 and B17 at a health food shop in central London last week. Both B17 and BI5 were first extracted from apricot kernels by E. T. Krebs in the US. They are manufactured by the Contassium Company of Putney, south-west London, and several other companies in Britain. The products are said to prevent cancer, but studies carried out by the Us National Cancer lnstitute repudiate these claims. Medical experts also deny that they are really vitamins, despite their "B" designa- tions. B15 is sometimes called pangamic acid or calcium pangamate. It is sold as an enhancer of the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, and is widely used by athletes in the USSR, says Dr Robert Woodward of Contassium. Muhammad Ali attributed some of his victories in the boxing ring to a prior course of treatment with B15. It is also reputed to prevent diabetes, asthma, heart disease and "stress". But none of these claims has been substantiated and some preparations may actually be dangerous. Research by the American Food and Drug Administration suggests that one chemical that is often found in B15 tablets, dimethyl glycine, may cause genetic damage to cells. B17 is also known as amygdalin. It releases cyanide when in the presence of hydrolysing enzymes that are present in some vegetables, such as lettuce and mush- rooms, certain fresh fruits, green peppers, celery and sweet almonds. Eating any of these uncooked foods with B17 can cause cyanide poisoning. Some 40 poisonings and 17 deaths from cyanide have occurred in laetrile users in the US. An 11-month old baby died after accidentally swallowing a few laetrile tablets. Such pills are on sale in London for #4 for a bottle of 50. The Irish, thought by the EEC to be the last in Europe to take B17 off the market, say that the product has now been withdrawn. Both B15 and B17 are sold as a vitamin supplement to the diet. This puts them half way between a drug and a health food. British authorities do not like either B15 or B17 but they say they arc unsure how to act. Pros- ecuting manufacturers of pseudo-vitamins under the Trades Descriptions Act is difficult, a spokesman for the Department of Trade told <1New Scientist>1. "You only need one person to say that he or she benefited from the product to lose the case," she said. The British manufacturer, Contassium, argues that is has often taken doctors years to recognise the value of substances, such as vitamin C and B12, that are now recog- nised as genuine vitamins. "We just make them, if people want to buy them; it is for the Department of Health to sort out whether they are valuable or not," Walter O'Connell of Contassium says. Dr Robert Woodward of Contassium said that if the authorities wanted to with- draw B17 they would "have to ban marzipan; you can get the equivalent of a 25 mg tablet of B17 by eating 20 almonds," he said. The Department of Health says it is "aware of the US criticism of the products" and is keeping them "under review". The department says that it is seeking advice from the Committee on safety of Medi- cines on B17. A European consumers' pressure group is angry at the chaotic state of control on such potentially-lethal products. Yves Domzalski of the European Bureau of Consumer Organisations, to which the British Consumers' Association belo- says that no system exists for governments to exchange information on medicines or a range of other products. [] <2UN calls for more aid for Third World space satellites>2 OFFICIALS at the United Nations are appealing to the rich industrialised world to help out developing countries in the area of space science and technology. The aid would come mainly through train- ing schemes that channel to Third World engineers knowledge about, for instance, how to use imagery from remote-sensing satellites that scan the land and oceans. The UN's outer-space division wants to spend $500000 next year on schemes for training and also on setting up an advisory service for Third WorId space engineers. But, before the programme can go ahead, the industrialised countries will have to contribute the lion's share of the money. "Much depends on the attitude of indi- vidual governments," says Adigun Abiodun, an official in the outer space division. So far, Australia the US and Austria have indicated they will help by running one-year scholarships for space engineers. But training programmes of this nature do not always have the intended effect, according to Peter Adeniyi of the Univer- sity of Lagos. Speaking at a conference on space science and technology in Rome last week, Adeniyi said that such schemes have little point if the engineers are unable to use their knowledge when they return home. For example, and engineer trained in remote-sensing techniques in the West would be unable to use his knowledge if his own country lacks the computer equip- ment to make sense of the data. Alterna- tively, the information obtained from a remote-sensing satellite could be inap- propriate for a developing country if the sensors on board the vehicle are tailored only to the different requirements of indus- trialised nations. Adeniyi said that in a survey of 93 scientists and engineers from Nigeria who attended overseas courses on remote- sensing, only 22 were in a position to apply the knowledge that they had obtained. And of these 22, only five had suitable equip- ment to work with. Africa's needs in the area of remote- sensing were highlighted at the conference by Bernard Sikilo, director general of Kenya's remote-sensing centre in Nairobi. At present Africa contains only one station that can receive signals directly from the US's landsat remote-sensing craft. This is at Johannesburg in south Africa. So the countries of black Africa have to rely on data sent in computer tapes from the US or from Europe. Sikilo said that the countries of Africa would benefit greatly from stations that could receive the data directly. For instance, they would be able to monitor day-to-day changes in the growth of crops or forests. According to Sikilo, a remote- sensing station would cost $15 million to $20 million, with a further $1 million annually added for running costs. Ideally, Sikilo would like to see three such stations--in Nairobi and in two other sites in Upper Volta and Zaire. He says nego- tiations are taking place with the EEC and the World Bank to provide the finance. According to representatives at the conference from China, developing coun- tries can often do a lot themselves to advance in space technology. They should start regional cooperative programmes to share the costs of, for instance, satellite communications. Peter Marsh, Rome [] <2PWR's might bring export boost>2 THE potential export value to Britain of an indigenous pressurised- water reactor (PWR) programme was trumpeted by the National Nuclear Corporation this week as the Sizewell inquiry ad- journed for its Easter break. The hearing, which is now 12 weeks old, was told that the fitting out of Britain's first civil PWR could generate 6000 manufacturing jobs. Dr Norman Franklin, NNC's manag- ing director, conceded that the immediate export prospects were slim, however. He argued that the existing advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) programme was unlikely to offer much scope for overseas sales because of its high construction costs. The British nuclear industry's best hope of capturing any slice of the export action would depend on the UK getting experience in building several PWR's. However, this special pleading by the NNC, which needs an expanded nuclear programme for its continued existence, squares uneasily with latest Government observations. During his fortnight-long cross examination, Robert Priddle, the Department of Energy's witness at the inquiry, explained that Whitehall no longer placed much emphasis on the need to help Britain's beleaguered nuclear industry as a justification for Sizewell B. He told the inquiry that the government rated the questions of supply efficiency and cost to consumers as more important than "the particular benefit to the (nuclear) construction industry." Last Friday the civil servant in charge of government policy on radioactive waste management reiterated Whitehall's posi- tion that a solution to the disposal issue would have to wait for a future generation. But George Wedd, an under-secretary at the Department of the Environment, went on to suggest that the present generation was morally bound to make plans. [] <2Argentine torpedo will threaten Falklands>2 ARGENTINA is paying a Swiss company more than $100 miIlion to develop and build a new type of remotely- controlled torpedo. The torpedo can sit unattended on the sea bed for two years until an underwater sound-signal tells it to rise to the surface. lt can then travel up to 100 km before homing in on its target--a British warship or merchant vessel. According to the magazine <1International>1 <1Defense Review>1, The Argentine govern- ment first approached the Swiss company Tek-Sea last summer. The Lugano-based firm has already started testing prototypes of the weapon, which it calls Telemine. Further trials will take place off the coast of Venezuela. Deliveries, at a rate of ten Tele- mines a month, will start next spring. Each weapon costs $300000 without its warhead, and the production rate will quickly build up to between 25 and 30 a month. The Telemine is based on the design of a manned torpedo that the Italian Navy used during the Second World War. The weapon is 5 m long, 55 cm in diameter and weighs 650 kg, including 170 kg for the high- explosive warhead. The Telemine can remain dormant at a depth of 150 m for up to two years. When it receives an acoustic signal trans- mitted from a range of up to 40 km, the weapon jettisons its ballast and rises to just below the sea surface. An antenna on top of the torpedo's sensor pod receives radio signals from an Argentinian ship, submarine or aircraft. Each operator can handle up to five Telemines simulta- neously, steering them towards their targets by remote control. The torpedo's 4.5 kW electric motor, supplied with power from lithium or silver/zinc batteries, gives a top speed of 35 km/hr and a maximum range of 100 km. When the Telemine is 500 m from a target it surfaces completely, so the sensor pod on top is clear of the water. The pod contains a television camera that operates even in very bad light. Telemine transmits the TV picture over a radio link to the controller, who sends back final steering instructions. During the final stages of an attack the weapon's sensors lock on to the target ship's radar or sonar signals and the Telemine homes in on them. If the operator is in an aircraft that is flying at a height of 10000 m he can control a Telemine from a range of 500 km. This would allow the Argentinians to stay well clear of the exclusion zone around the Falklands Islands while at the same time being able to attack ships anywhere inside it. Telemine is only as large as a conventional torpedo--of which two British versions were sufficient to sink the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano with the loss of more than 300 lives during the Falklands war last summer. Mark Hewish [] <2Famine brings measles outbreak>2 MEASLES is the latest threat to the tens of thousands of people displaced by the drought and famine in northern Ethiopia. Relief workers at Ebenat camp (<1New Scientist>1, 17 March, p 727) last wek reported that many children have the disease, and that supplies of vaccine were short. Measles often kills in Africa, particularly when the victims are young and undernourished. But despite the difficulties of reaching the camps, relief workers and supplies are getting through, A doctor and a nurse from the British charity Oxfam are already at Ebenat camp, and Danish health workers are setting up health services for the 5000 people there. To the east, in Wollo, the Save the Children Fund is intensively feeding 700 out of the 3000 children it has registered at the Korem camp. The team is weighing young children every month, and about 15 per cent of them have to go to intensive feeding, with high-energy milk to combat the symptoms of kwashiokor. Save the Children's team has been in the country since last year, and gave an early warning of the famine. But foreign governments have been slow to respond with aid. The British government has given f100 000, of which one third will go on food. The inacces- sibility of the drought region means that one third of the money goes on transport. [] <2Doel reactors on the dole>2 BELGIUM is pressing ahead with plans to generate half its electricity from nuclear power by 1985, despite a series of mishaps at the country's biggest concentration of nuclear power at Doel, near Antwerp. Three Westinghouse- designed PWRs have been built there since 1974 and a fourth will be running by 1985. The trouble at Doel began last November when workmen refuelling Doel 2 dropped "some pieces of metal" into the reactor's core. No one noticed for a month, until the contamination showed up at the filters on the primary water circuit. The pIant's operators decided to shut down the reactor and clean the rods. After a three-month stoppage, engineers said last week that they expected to have the plant running again in a fortnight. The shutdown has coincided with the sched- uled refuelling of Doel 1. And last week its big sister, the Doel 3, was also having problems. One of the four diesel generators that would power its computer controls in the event of a blackout was also out of service and the reactor was threatened with shut-down. [] <2Easter hatching>2 SCIENTISTS at San Diego Zoo have an Easter egg with a difference. It is blueish in colour, six times larger than a chicken's egg, and about to make ornithological history. The egg belongs to one of five known Californian condors that are still mating in the wild. The chick inside is the first of its species to be incubated in captivity. The incubation is part of a last-ditch attempt to establish a mating programme to save the huge Califomian bird, which has dwindled to about 20 birds (<1New->1 <1Scientist,>1 20 January, p 142). The chick is due on good Friday, but it could take up to three days to free itself from the egg. A lot rides on the success of the incu- bation. The "save the condor" effort has ben heavily politicised. Some environmental groups maintaining that the birds should be left to their own devices rather than being raised in capitivity. [] <2Chevenement's research revolution bows out>2 FRANCE'S ebullient research and indus- try minister, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, was the major casualty in last week's French cabinet reshuffle. The minister, who had radically restructured French research and technology, actually handed in his resignation on 2 February after a clash with President Francois Mitterrand--but it only became public last week. Chevenement enjoyed 18 months' political success, during which time he did well enough to be tipped as the next prime minister. But his handling of the industry portfolio incurred the wrath of industry leaders who appear to have won the presi- dent over to their side <1(New Scientist>1 10 March, p 646). This together with other policy differences led Chevenement to resign. His replacement is a balding 35 year old who drives a Citroen Deux Chevaux, Laurent Fabius. Ironically, it was Fabius, the previously budget minister, who gave Chevenement his hardest battle to get money to finance the greatly increased research budgets. Early on in the present government's adminis- tration a representative of Fabius warned that if research was to get the money it required, other ministries would suffer. Now that the gamekeeper has turned poacher, it is not clear whether Fabius will fight as hard as his prede- cessor for money. But a spokesman for Fabius last week said that he would do his best to make sure that Mitterrand's target of 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product to be spent on research by 1985 will be met. Fabius has a slightly different title from his predecessor. Cheve\ne- ment was minister of research and industry. Under Fabius the order is reversed. At the Elysee, a spokesman said there could be "modulations" in presi- dential commitments over a period of years, and indi- cated that the president could take Fabius's advice in the area of research spending. While research looks like taking more of a backseat in the new government, the extent to which Fabius will change research policy will become apparent only when he has begun to change the people in key staff positions. Observers reckon this will happen only slowly and probably more in industry-related jobs. With no background in research or tech- nology, Fabius will take his time before embarking on radical reorganisation of an area which has already been transformed in the last two years. [] <2Artificial-heart man dies>2 AFTER 112 pioneering days as the first man to live with a permanent artificial heart, Barney Mark, the Seattle dentist died last week, after a viral infection attacked his weakened body. The end came soon after the 62-year old patient's kidneys began to shut down and the amount of blood pumped by his artificial heart dropped. Doctors said that while his heart was fine, his vascular system had given up the ghost. Clark's survival had been tenuous ever since the heart, powered by compressed air, was implanted on 2 December last year. At one point during his first month after the operation, a valve failed on the artificial heart, forcing the surgical team from the University of Utah Medical Centre in Salt Lake City to undertake a fresh operation to replace it. At other times, he suffered serious infections and pneumonia and became very depressed. He frequently had be be place on a respi- rator that combined with the two tubes that linked his heart to its 170 kg air compressor, gave the impression of a man supported entirely by mechanical means. "It's hard," Mark told a doctor conducting a broadcast interview with him early this month, "but that heart bumps right along" The procedure itself drew criticism. Some cardiologists complained that the heart could never be more than a tempo- ray remedy and that the money spent on the research could be better used for drug therapies and other techniques. Nevertheless, the heart did earn Mark 112 days of life. The Utah team's experi- ence nursing Clark through his succession of crises will inevitable produce dividends for future heart patients. And, as Mark himself said, when asked whether he had any words of advice for those who might follow in his footsteps, "I would tell them that it's worth it if the alternative is that they die." [] <2Whitehall shuffle bodes well for heritage law>2 THIS WEEK Timothy Raison, minister for Overseas Development, will read a report from his civil servants advising him to hand over control of an international conser- vation treaty to the Department of the Environment. This decision settles an inter-departmen- tal squabble of long standing and opens the way for the government to reconsider Britain's equally long-standing refusal to sign the World Heritage Convention. In recent weeks both Sir Peter Scott and Sir Laurens van der Post, have called on the government to sign the 11-year-old convention. And three government advi- sory agencies on conservation have told ministers that Britain's reputation as a leader in conservation is being seriously undermined by its continued failure to sign. Sixty-eight other countries, including most of Europe, the Commonwealth, and the US, have ratified the convention, but successive British governments have argued that signing would be "too expensive". This is because the UK would have to contribute #39 000 a year to a fund to help protect natural and cultural sites of international importance all over the world. Since the convention's Funds are used mainly to help protect World Heritage sites in developing countries, responsibility was assigned to the Overseas Development Agency, part of the Foreign Office. Civil servants at the ODA say they "would rather spend the money on social and economic development programmes". But there has been pressure from the Department of the Environment to ratify the convention. Offi- cials there are regularly and publicly taken to task at conservation meetings in Britain and abroad over Britain's absence from the convention. "It's ironic," one civil servant at the department said, "when I'm abroad I always urge other countries to adhere to the convention, and we haven't even signed it". Environment officials--who argue that the convention should be theirs because it concerns conservation rather than aid--now appear to have won their case. Next week ODA officials will recommend to their minister, Timothy Raison, that the convention be handed over to the DoE--who will then have to pay the contributions. If, as expected, Britain does finally ratify the convention, it may apply to have certain areas designated as World Heritage sites. Under the convention these sites would then be protected from damaging developments. A government spokesman last year told the House of Lords that "it is doubtful whether there would be any heri- tage places in the United Kingdom". But already the Countryside Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council have drawn up a short list of natural sites suit- able for World Heritage status. These include the Cairngorms, the Lake District, (St. Kilda) and the western seaboard of the scottish Highlands where the EEC is thinking of funding a #200 million agricul- tural development programme. [] Catherine Caufield <2Reagan's ray guns are decades away>2 PRESIDENT Ronald Reagan, six-guns flashing, regaled the public again last week with a new vision of laser battalions in space. He called on American scientists to dedicate themselves to this new national effort. Speaking at a press conference on security, Reagan raised the banner for a new approach to national defence--a move away from massive retaliation toward a new defensive technology, hov- ering in space, that could nullify the Soviet Union's arsenal of missiles. The notion of lasers in space has captured the imaginations of planners at the Pentagon and the White House. Such a system--a final technological fix to end the escalation in missile production- "may not be accomplished before the end of the century," Reagan said. In fact, even with the Pentagon spending about $ 1000 million a year on research into laser and anti-ballistic missile systems, lasers are unlikely to meet that deadline, said George Keyworth, Reagan's science adviser and a physicist, last year. Keyworth said then that anti-missile lasers are the stuff of fantasy for the next few decades. Apparently there are no specific plans to recruit more scientists to do the job, according to a Pentagon official who over- sees the defence department's research grants to university scientists. White House officials played down the revolutionary tenor of Reagan's comments, saying that no new infusion of money was set aside for lasers, only that a "reorganisation" of the new disparate research projects is underway. Observers say that Reagan's plea to scientists to develop non-nuclear defences is part of a plan to back away from an offen- sive strategy based on the homeless MX missile. It could be part also of an effort to raise a smoke screen to divert public atten- tion from Reagan's plan for a massive military build-up. Over the past few years, the Pentagon has invested several billion dollars in tech- nology related to defences against ballistic missiles, including guided anti-ballistic missiles, particle beams and high-energy lasers. Military planners have also devel- oped a strategy for nuclear defence in which attacking missiles would have to run a gauntlet of several "layers" of defence. One or two layers would be in space--first shooting at missiles as they left the atmo- sphere and then shooting at re-entry vehi- cles as they travel through space. Vital strategic sites, such as fields of missile silos, would be protected by ground- based systems, which would hit incoming warheads. Some missiles would be likely to leak through each layer but the cumulative effect would be to limit the damage greatly. The army's ballistic missile defence command in Huntsville, Alabama, is still working on missile-based "terminal" defence design to stop missiles as they approach their target. One programme, the low altitude defence system (LOWADS) is intended to protect the MX missile by using nuclear warheads to destroy warheads. But that programme may be doomed because of the uncertainty over MX and concern that the explosion of the nuclear warhead could knock out the missiles in their silos as well as the incoming warhead. The hottest programme now is said to be on missiles that would destroy their targets within the atmo- sphere but without using a nuclear warhead. The Pentagon is also studying an "overlay" system, in which non-nuclear missiles would destroy warheads or missiles in space en route to their target. When development of support- ing technology for guidance and control is counted in, these ballistic missile defence programmes accounted for about $2900 billion last year with a little over $500 million budgeted for this year. The Reagan administration has asked for $709.3 million for ballistic missile defence (BMD) for 1984, and has proposed more than double that for 1985. However, the government is spending much less on developing directed-energy for beam weapons, which is apparently what Reagan had in mind last week during his press conference. Work on laser weapons in space (<1New>1 <1Scientist,>1 10 June 1982, p 714) is concen- trated at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and is budgeted at $148.8 million with a request for $172.6 million in 1984. The plan is for orbiting laser battle stations which would zap Soviet missiles. The big thrust is to develop three subsystems collectively called the Space Laser Triad, which is budgeted for $71 million in 1983. The triad includes the 5 MW alpha chemical laser, the large optics demonstration experiment, and a pointing tracking system called Talon Gold. The first two systems will be tested on the ground in two or three years, while Talon Gold will be tested from the space shuttle at about the same time. [] <2It's a dog's life for chemical weapons>2 CHEMICAL weapons against predators that roam the American West appar- ently interest wildlife managers more than unorthodox, if old-fashioned, alternatives, like guard dogs. A row over which is best will reach the US's Congress in May. Hal Black a zoolo- gist from Brigham Young University says dogs might be better at keeping wild coyotes away from livestock than poisonous chemicals. However, he says, he has been misquoted and his work suppres- sed by publicly- supported scientists who are supposed to follow all research leads on predator control. Black says that a member of a scientific committee that advises the government on the control of predators "intentionally" excluded references to Black's work on dogs in a report dated March 1982 to the Environmental Protection Agency. The report instead came out heavily in favour of a toxicant called Compound 1080 (sodium monofluoroacetate) to kill coyotes. Then other members of the panel, the Western Regional Coordinating Commit- tee on Predator Control (WRCC-26), sent a letter to a rancher "apologising" for comments Black allegedly made at the committee's annual meeting in Waco, Texas. The letter quotes Black as saying that white and Navajo ranchers "misrepresent" their livestock losses and "blame everything on coyotes". It also says Black's views on the effectiveness of mongrel guard dogs "do not represent the views of the committee". Black says his remarks were taken out of context in an effort to discredit him. The letter is signed by three members of the WRCC-26, two of whom did not attend the meeting in Waco. Copies went to Black's boss, the president of the Navajo nation and the Utah Wool- growers Association. Black told <1New>1 <1Scientist>1 he may sue WRCC-26 if they do not retract the letter. The controversy over lethal-versus- non lethal methods of predator control is clouded by uncertain science and by poli- tics. Critics of the most recent studies of compound 1080 say that they prove only that the chemical is lethal to coyotes--not that it can prevent or significantly decrease predation of flocks. However, the livestock industry is largely pro-1080, because it is "quick, dirty and subsidised", says Black. A spokesman for EPA says industry supports the chemical because it is cheaper than other methods such as shooting, trapping and electric fencing. The Carter administration favoured phasing out lethal methods of predator control. In 1979, the US banned the non- experimental use of 1080 because of its dangers to humans and wildlife other than coyotes. However, shortly before Anne Burford resigned as chief of the EPA, she was due to announce her decision on whether to lift the ban in light of new evidence. The matter is still up in the air, and congress plans to hold hearing in May on whether EPA manipulated data about 1080 to justify reappraisal of the ban. Nancy Heneson, Washington DC <2Spaghetti Junction's repair men are sacked>2 THE DEPARTMENT of Transport (DoT) has sacked the county council in charge of keeping Spaghetti Junction in good repair. The 21 kilometres of elevated road on the M5 and the M6, the hub of Britain's motorway network, have suffered from severe structural problems. They are having to be repaired at a total cost of some #20 million. Under the usual arrangement for trunk roads--those roads which are controlled by the DoT--the West Midlands County Council acted at the DoT's agents for repairing the road. From 1 April the DoT will take over direct responsibility for the major repair work of inspecting the under- side of the viaducts, where important struc- tural defects have appeared. The West Midlands County Council will be left with the job of surfacing the roads. Lynda Chalker, the transport minister said: "I wish to make it clear that the county council has my confidence in its ability to undertake this particularly demanding role ..." The council will continue to be the DoT's agent for other roads in the West Midlands, a job which last year was worth more than #7 million. The DoT said that the council would lose 10to 15 per cent of this work next year. The DoT was unable to give a figure for how much the repair work on the Midlands motorways is costing this year. Under the agency agreement with the DoT, the council was due to have started "principal investigations" of the viaducts in 1977. The council did not start the work. And under pressure from the DoT the council appointed consultants to inspect the viaducts. These consultants did not start work until 1979--two years later. The consultants found worrying signs of structural damage. The most common problem has been the need to replace the joints between the 15 or 20 metre spans of the road. The DoT told the House of Commons transport committee that nearly 1300 joints had been replaced between 1975 and 1982 and a further 750 still had to be replaced. The cost of this replacement programme so far has been #7.3 million. Each section of the deck of the road is carried on sliding bearings, to allow for expansion of the sections. The bearings in turn are supported on cement plinths, to keep them level. These bearing-plinths are often damaged, impeding the working of the bearings and putting stress on the road deck. In two cases the lack of support for the bearings has caused the beam above to drop, by 35 mm. Some other beams have had to be wedged to avoid dropping. The cost of this repair work (which is two-thirds complete) is likely to be #3 million. The county coucil has been responsible for appointing contractors to carry out this repair work. In June 1981 the junior trans- port wrote to the West Midlands "I am satisfied with the nature and standard of the repair work." Now the junior minister says she is pleased "that the West Midlands County Council have accepted my proposals for a sensible and reasonable division of responsibilities." [] <2Will an old broom sweep EPA clean?>2 IN AN effort to clean up the mess that has afflicted the Environmental Protection Agency, President Reagan last week pulled an old broom out of the cupboard. He announced his intention to nominate, as the new Administrator of the agency, Wil- liam Ruckelshaus, the man who served as its first Administrator from 1970 to 1973. Ruckelshaus, a republican lawyer, also hit the headlines when he resigned as Deputy Attorney-General in the midst of the Watergate crisis rather than fulfil Presi- dent Nixon's order to fire Archibald Fox, the special prosecutor. The EPA's political situation hardly compares with Watergate. Nevertheless persistent charges that, under Anne Burford, the agency put politics first had combined to lower morale. Ruckelshaus is a marked contrast to Burford and her political mentor, the Interior Secretary James Watt, whose attitude often seemed to be that the environment was over-protected. Ruck- elshaus recognises the public appeal of the agency. "The question of whether we're going to clean up the environment of this country is long over," he told a press conference. "The question today is not whether, the question is how." Industrialists recall that Ruckelshaus fought, in his first term as EPA administrator, for strict pollution controls on cars, to force steelmakers and utilities to install pollution control equipment, and to ban several herbicides. "We have some problems with some of his views on a number of major and very controversial issues," said a chemical company spokesman. Environmentalists recall that, since 1975, Ruckelshaus has been a senior vice-president of the Weyerhaeuser Company of Tacoma, Washington--a timber corporation that has had disagreements with the EPA. Reminders of the chaos at the EPA continued to swirl round Washington last week. A draft report from the House of Represen- tatives charged that the EPA "acted improperly or at a minimum created the appearance of impropriety", in deciding not to regulate formaldehyde as a cancer-causing chemical. [] <2Twenty-five years ago a fire swept through the core of a pile manufacturing plutonium at>2 <2Windscale, The row still rages. New evidence points to unrecognised danger from polonium>2 <2John Urquhart>2 IT IS 25 years since the nuclear accident at Windscale in October 1957. Until recently there has never been any suggestion that the radioactive releases that took place then produced any serious health effects. Attention has centred throughout on the releases of radioactive iodine and its subsequent ingestion over a wide area of Britain and Western Europe. A recent report by the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) said the iodine-131 may have killed 13 people through cancer of the thyroid over a period of decades. However, the damage to health may have been much more severe than this. Indeed, it could represent the worst envi- ronmental disaster that Western Europe has known this century. On 9 October, 1957 the atomic pile of No. 1 Reactor at Windscale in Cumberland, north-west England, began to overheat and part of it caught fire. The fire was finally put out on the morning of 12 October. Probably the best and most inde- pendent description of the accident in the site is given by C. R. McCullough of the US Atomic Energy Commission. Having explained that the first mistake was made at 11 am Tuesday, 8 October, he goes on to say: "At 2.15 am, Wednesday the 9th, they discovered [the thermocouples] were slowly rising. Some of them had gotten to greater than 400oC, so they decided that they had better cool the reactor." The cool- ing attempts did not work, so by "5.40 am [10 October] they noticed an activity up in the stack--radioactivity." McCullough "Then at noon on the 10th, they found some activity on the roof of the meteorological station; this was unusual, and they knew that something had gone wrong . . . Then at 12.10 pm . . . they got a very marked increase in the stack activity . . . About 1.38 am on the 11th they got a reading of 1300oC. They now had a really hot fire." During the fire the weather pattern was complex. On 10 October, winds were light and variable. An initial press release from the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) said that radioactivity had blown out to sea. According to John Dunster, then a scientist with the AEA and now chairman of the NRPB, the main radioactive cloud trav- elled south-east across most of England and on over Europe. The principal isotope released was iodine- 131. It produced 20 000 curies of radioactivity. There were also smaller quantities of caesium- 137 (600 curies), strontium-89 (80 curies) and strontium-90 (9 curies), ruthenium-103 and 106, zirconium-95, niobium-95 and cerium-144, "together with polonium- 210". But a re-examination of the data published in the aftermath of the fire reveals that one crucial isotope released in the fire has been ignored in subsequent analysis of the health consequences. For a radioactive isotope to have serious health effects a release should have the following qualities: @ large quantity released @ great mobility in the environment @ high take-up by the human body @ relatively long radioactive and biological half life. The radioactive iodine released does not satisfy the second and fourth conditions. Nevertheless, the NRPB found it probably did significant harm. One pathway not yet considered as a cause of thyroid cancer is the decay of the 12 000 curies of tellurium- 132 released. Although it decays into the short-lived icdine-132, it is more mobile in the envi- ronment and the timing of its passage through the cow or human gut could be critical. A similar argument applies to the 900 curies of molybdenum and its break- down into technetium. Apart from thyroid cancer it has not seemed that any illnesses could be detected and so the matter has not been pursued. But there was one isotope released in the accident that is highly mobile, that does have a high take-up by the human body, has a half-life of 140 days, and--though this was only revealed this week by the NRPB after <1New>1 <1Scientist's>1 inquiries--was released in significant quantities. It is polonium. Margaret Gowing in her official history of the British post-war atomic programme said: "Polonium was a little-known element needed for a vital component of the (atomic) bomb . . . after Harwell had made the first polonium, Windscale assumed production responsibility . . . Polonium is a strong alpha emitter, however, until the Americans made an atomic bomb, no one had ever used polo- nium in any appreciable amount; it was so radioactive that it glowed in the dark. Penney, Cockcroft and Hinton [Britain's nuclear "barons"] agreed that Harwell should provide the research information and flowsheet for a plant, to be built at Windscale, to extract polonium from bismuth irradiated in the piles." It was one of these piles that caught fire, releasing the deadly polonium in the form of a gas. Gowing goes on to indicate the health hazard arising from the intense alpha activity of polonium at the Wind- scale site: "Alpha handling procedures had to be greatly upgraded to deal with polo- nium, and for a time everyone had to work with respirators . . . Harwell's difficulties in handling polonium were again encoun- tered at Windscale; alpha contamination became severe and several of the oper- ational staff had to be temporarily taken off the work because of polonium ingestion." It is, however, the polonium ingested by the public as a result of the fire that we are concerned with. Two figures occur in the open literature from which we can deduce the amount released in the radioactive cloud that crossed England and Wales and Western Europe. Two scientists from the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Stewart and Crooks, reported in 1958 a ratio of polonium to iodine-131 of 1 to 38.6 on filters at Harwell, while read- ings made in Holland by Johans Blok indicated a ratio of 1 to 31. Corrected for radioactive decay, a linear interpolation of these figures to the Wind- scale source would indicate a ratio in the cloud as it left the Windscale chimney of 1:45. (A log interpolation would indicate a ratio of 1:54.) Unlike the caesium-137 release, it seemed that the rate of depletion of the polonium-210 from the cloud was not appreciably less than that of the iodine. (Polonium is completely volatile above 500oC.) If the NRPB is right that 20000 curies of radioactivity from iodine- 131 was released, then some 370 curios of polonium would have gone with it. A recent paper by the NRPB suggests the virulence of this amount. In an exam- ination of the possible effects of coal-fired power stations Board scientists estimate that the release of 1.62 curies of polonium over 30 years would lead to a population dose of 3600 man-rems. So a dose of some 370 curies suggests a dose of some 850 000 man-rems. The NRPB fibres, however, refer to an average release from a 500m high stack in central southern England. Much of it would pass over the relatively sparsely populated area of eastern England and out to sea. The Windscale cloud however, passed over most of the cities of England so the collective dose would be higher. One way of calculating this figure is to compare the dose from given levels of contamination of poIonium-210 and iodine-131. Checks carried out in Leeds after the fire gave a dose of 0.15 rems to the thyroid with an initial ground concen- tration of 320 nanocuries per sq. m of iodine-131, and the NRPB Windscale acci- dent report suggests a collective dose of 1.33 million man-rems from drinking milk contaminated with iodine-1.31. The equiv- alent polonium could give an equivalent individual dose via ingesting local food of 0.57 rems implying a total dose to the UK of 5 million man-rems and a further dose to the continent of 0.5 million man-rems. Clearly this figure could be more or less. Similar uncertainties also apply to the actual health effects per man-rem. At present the NRPB suggest 165 cancer deaths per million man-rems. We are therefore talking about more than a thou- sand deaths from the Windscale accident. Three questions remain unanswered: was all the area of radioactive fall-out monitored? Clarke suggests that only 10 per cent of the iodine-131 escaped. What happened to the other 90 per cent? Can the calculation of 165 deaths per one million rems be applied to all age groups--or even any? Even light rainfall would significantly increase deposition rates. Was there no rain at the time? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then the death figures may have to be revised significantly upwards. [] <2Looking for an increase in deaths from cancer>2 IN VIEW of the number of potential deaths from the polonium release, the search for signs of a rising cancer rate is now a top priority. The figures for deaths from leukaemia seem to back up the prediction from dose estimates that some- thing very serious happened at Windscale in 1957. After a nuclear accident, scientists expect to find first leukaemia cases, beginning after five years and peaking after 15-20 years, then thyroid cancer and finally general cancers. The typical pattern of cancer also shows a far higher proportion of younger people affected than is the case from other causes. This is exactly what we find here. After the Windscale fire, attention was directed to the area immediately to the south--downwind of the release from the pile. In Millom and Dalton-in-Furness, the concentration of iodine-131 fallout on the ground was between 3000 and 10 000 nanocuries per sq.m. So, taking account of the polonium, local people relying mainly on local milk, meat and vegetables could expect doses over a period of a couple of years of about 4 to 15 rems; more inci- dentally, than people at Hiroshima within 2 km of the bomb. However, a milk ban was enforced in Cumbria for two months to reduce iodine- 131 intake and, after that, local cows consumed uncontaminated winter feed. Moreover, many local cows were slaughtered after the accident. So the final doses are likely to be of the order of 4 rems. This is still much higher than the doses predicted by John Dunster and others at the time. In the larger population of 200000 people south and east of Windscale, the iodine concentrations were between 700 and 3000 nanocufies per sq.m, implying individual doses of between land 5 rems or a population dose of 0.5 million man-rems. This suggests between 100 and 1000 cancers. Peter Taylor, of the Political Ecology Research Group, has already pointed out the above-average numbers of cases of leukaemia in Barrow, Cumberland and Westmoreland, although he says; "Any link to the pattern of 1957 fall- out can be ruled out because of the very low doses and the nature of the radio- activity." But he was not aware of the significance of the polonium release. The Cumbria Area Health Authority claimed in 1981 that "deaths from leukaemia have not significantly altered from the national rates". But, in fact, the tables in the report show that while leukaemia rates for 1951-58 were 83 per cent of the national average, in the period 1971-1978 they had risen to 100 per cent. In the area we are particularly concerned with, south- west Cumbria, male cancer rates rose significantly from the period 1969-73 to the period 1974-78. The Cumbria AHA report also shows that leukaemia cases, particularly multiple myclomas, were higher than average (see table). Even if the recorded incidence of multiple myelomas were 25 per cent up from 1969-73 to 1974-78, as a result of better registration of the disease, the chances of this surge of cases occurring by chance would be 1 in 1000. Also of note are the cancer deaths among young adults in the districts of Copeland, Barrow and South Lakeland. Between 1974 and 1980 these two were significantly above the expected level. The district of Copeland includes the rural districts of Ennerdale and Millom where some of the greatest fall-out occurred. A comparison of observed young cancer deaths in Copeland with expected deaths shows even greater elevation in the years 1974 to 1980. The 12 deaths observed in thc 15-24 age group is 210 per cent of what would be expected. The chance of this high death rate occurring by chance is 1 in 50. Young children seem to have been particularly sensitive to the Windscale acci- dent. In Millom, four children between the ages of 15 and 24 died in the period 1974 to 1980 when only 1-2 deaths would be expected, and a further three died in the period 1971 to 1973. And four chil- dren died there between the ages of 5 and 14 in the years 1963 to 1973 when only 1.5 would be expected. Clearly a cohort analysis of this and other areas in south- west Cumbria is urgently required. The search now goes on for cancers over a wider area. A comparison of the estimated concentration of fallout from the Windscale cloud across the country with changes in death rates from leukaemia is revealing. The table below shows the extent to which the amount of radioactive fallout from the Windscale cloud in 16 English counties (as measured by the iodine-131 fallout) correlates with the rate of leukaemia deaths. The numbers are the rank correlation coefficients. Zero is ran- dom; one represents a perfect fit. The increasing correlation in the mid-1970s is clear. 1967 -0.26 1974 0.45 1968 0.01 1975 0.66 1969 0.26 1976 0.60 1970 0.17 1977 0.33 1971 0.43 1978 -0.17 1972 0.33 1979 0.30 1973 0.47 1980 0.09 The figures suggest that some 1200 excess cases of leukaemia may have been caused in Britain by the Windscale acci- dent, since leukaemia deaths account for some 15 per cent of cancers attributable to nuclear accidents, the total toll of cancer deaths suggested is 8000. This figure lies on the high side of our initial estimate but two factors must be borne in mind. First, we have no precise figures for how much polonium escaped or of where it actually reached. Secondly, the biological takeup and pathways of polonium are not fully known. For example, polonium-210 concentrates at least a thousand times in fresh fish and more in shellfish. The results of the Windscale fire have important implications in the general theory of the effects of nuclear accidents. Both Britain and the US have used polonium in the atomic bombs they have exploded. Even if each bomb contained only 500 curies, less than one-tenth of a gram, the hundreds of tests could have contributed significantly to world leukaemia and cancer levels. Further infor- mation on the quantities used will be needed from the military authorities, but 500 bomb tests scattering 500 curies of polonium-210 implies an average deposit concentration of 0.1 nanocuries per sq. m over the world's surface. That is 10 milli- rems for each person in the world or an extra 5000 to 50000 deaths. Clearly further investigations into the whole of the Windscale accident must be urgently pursued. The British are in effect now the nuclear laboratory of the world.[] <2Countdown to the cruise>2 <2Going to war with cruise missiles would be precise, ruthless and utterly effective. Virtually>2 every stage in the firing and aiming process would be supervised by computers backed up by satellite links to the White House. Once launched the missiles are accurate enough to land a warhead with 10 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb on a tennis court 2500 kilometres away Mark Hewish IN DECEMBER, the first cruise missiles in Europe will take up their positions inside protective concrete bunkers at Greenham Common air base near Newbury in Berk- shire. By 1988, the United States Air Force plans to have 160 cruise missiles in Britain: 96 at Greenham Common and 64 at Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. If war in Europe seems likely, trucks carrying four missiles each will emerge from their bunkers and disperse around southern Britain to protect them from attack. The president of the United States, sitting in his command post, a Boeing 747 flying above America, can then order the crews to fire their missiles. The missiles would blast out of their launchers, navigate auto- matically across Europe, and land within a few metres of targets such as airfields, ports, power stations, dams and locks. The thermonuclear (hydrogen bomb) warhead on each cruise missile is 10 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. NATO decided in December 1979 to base 572 new nuclear-tipped missiles in Europe: 464 cruise missiles and 108 Pershing IIs. The first Pershing II ballistic missiles, with a range of 1800 km, will become operational in Germany during December. The cruise missiles will oper- ate from Italy, Germany, Belgium and possibly Holland as well as Britain. Although the cruise missiles and Pershing II can attack similar targets, they have their individual specialisations. The cruise missiles will augment and replace manned bombers, allowing the aircraft to attack enemy targets with conventional (non-nuclear) bombs and missiles. Pershing II, which dives steeply onto its target rather than hitting it in a shallow trajectory can carry a special "earth-penetrator" warhead that will bore through soil to attack underground bunkers. Pershing II can also disperse atomic mines to slow down a Russsian attack. The United States Air Force (USAF) will operate the 464 cruise missiles in Europe, leaving the US Army responsible for the Pershing IIs. The US will retain control of the weapons, although it will consult other countries before giving the order to fire. The same arrangement has existed for many years with the USAF's 170 F-111 bomber aircraft which fly from Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire and Lakenheath in Suffolk. NATO countries say that they do not want a "dual key" arrangement, in which an officer from the US and the host country have to turn their keys simultaneously before a weapon can be launched. Earlier nuclear weapons, such as the 1950s-vintage Honest John artillery rocket, have a dual- key process. In fact with the cruise missiles, keys do not exist: launch crews give the command to fire with a computer keyboard in a mobile control centre. The US calls its latest weapon the Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM), inevitably pronounced "glickum". The weapon was originally designed to arm submarines; it is 53 cm in diameter, the dimensions of torpedo tubes. The American forces are fitting other members of the missile family in submarines, on warships and under aircraft. The US Air Force has its own design, the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM), that arms B-52 strategic bombers. Boeing builds the ALCM, but the Convair Division of General Dynamics is responsible for all other types, including the ground-launched missile. Compared with present manned nuclear bombers such as the F-111, cruise missiles are more accurate, and hence also, according to military thinking, cause less unwanted damage to structures or people nearby. Nevertheless, the blast from a cruise missile would knock down houses several kilometres away and kill people up to 6 km away. As cruise missiles do not rely on long runways, and can be dispersed around the countryside in times of international tension, they are also less likely to be destroyed by a surprise attack. Over the next five years the USAF plans to buy 560 missiles, 137 launch vehicles and 79 launch control centres at a total cost of $3800 million. The hardware not needed for the operational sites will be used for testing and training. The USAF plans to organise its ground-launched cruise missiles into "flights", each of which carries 16 weapons. A flight comprises four vehicles called transporter-erector launchers (TELs), each carrying four missiles; two launch- control centres (LCCs), one to feed the necessary information to the missiles before firing and the other to act as back-up; lightweight fibre-optic cables which connect each launcher vehicle to the control centres; long-distance communication links; and other vehicles to protect against attack by saboteurs or Russian soldiers and for repairs. In peacetime, each flight occupies a concrete bunker at a main operating base (MOB) such as Greenham Common or Molesworth. Even the largest vehicles in a flight will fit in the USAF's standard transport aircraft such as the C-130 Hercules, C-141 Starlifter and C-5 Galaxy. Aircraft of this type will initially deliver the vehicles from the US. The shelters housing each flight will protect the equipment against a surprise attack by Soviet aircraft or missiles. Trying to defend against an all- out nuclear attack would be virtually impossible. A concrete "burster slab" over each bunker will stop conventional bombs from penetrating. Pits in front of the heavy bunker doors, which incline outwards, collect any debris thrown up during an attack. The doors then lower over the pits so that the vehicles can emerge. Soil around the bunker and on top of the slab provides further protection and makes the base difficult to see from the air. A proportion of the flights on each main oper- ating base maintain themselves at "quick reaction alert" (QRA) status, ready to move out at a moment's notice. In this case the members of the flight crew live in the bunker, along- side their missiles. A security fence, with watchtowers, protects the base against attack by ground forces. The British government is paying about #16 million to modernise Green- ham Common and Molesworth to take cruise missiles, and is contributing some 220 security guards. The USAF itself is stationing about 2000 people in Britain to supervise and oper- ate the missiles. The vehicles that make up a cruise missile flight will emerge regularly from their base and drive around the countryside to practise. They will go only to dummy sites, though, and not those for use in a real war. The USAF will adopt British safety regulations, which an probably the strictest in the world, when storing the missiles and their warheads. Only dummies, not live warheads, can be used during practice manoeuvres. If a major war in Europe ap- pears likely, the flights will disperse up to 160 km from their main operating base so that they cannot be wiped out in a single nuclear attack. Each flight travels as a convoy of 22 vehicles, divided into first and second "critical elements", each with two transporter-erector launchers and one launch- control centre. Supervising each flight will be 69 people: the flight commander, four launch officers, 19 maintenance men, 44 soldiers and a medical technician. The launcher and control vehicles each comprise four- wheeled trailers towed by German-built MAN 10-tonne trac- tors. The tractor has a V10 diesel engine and uses eight-wheel drive, so it can cross rough country to hide in woodland. It can ford rivers more than a metre deep and climb hills. Like the other parts of the convoy, the tractors carry steel plating for protection. While on the road, the convoy remains in radio commu- nication with its headquarters. Thus the missiles' controllers can immediately stop if they receive the emergency action message (EAM) before reaching the planned launch site --normally a wooded area, well away from built-up areas, to hide the weapon from prying eyes. In either case, the pro- cedure is then the same. Troops fan out to protect the vehicles against attack, while the launch crew prepares the missiles. A single launch-control centre can feed information to all 16 misiles simultaneously, via the fibre-optic cables, with the second LCC held in reserve. <2Code name: Cemetery>2 The two-man launch crew receives information from mili- tary posts in Europe and North America, using several inde- pendent radio links. The headquarters of the United States European Command (EUCOM), near Stuttgart, has a direct link with the USAF's own satellite communication network (AFSAT). Rather than having its own satellites, AFSAT uses transponders (relay devices) on several spacecraft of different types. This reduces the risk of the Soviet Union destroying the complete network with antisatellite weapons. When triggered by signals from EUCOM, the AFSAT equipment sends a recorded message directly to the cruise missiles' launch con- trol centres. This uses a radio link code-named Flaming Arrow. EUCOM also communicates with the White House and military establishments in the United States. These in turn have radio links with the airborne command posts (converted Boeing 747 airliners) that house the president and his advisers in wartime. The command posts also have a direct link to the control centres in each cruise-missile convoy. Other elements in the network include a high-frequency radio voice link with the chilling code name of Cemetery. A third branch of the communications flowing out of EUCOM goes over landlines to the European headquarters of the US Air Force at Ramstein, Germany, from here the messages split up, going directly to the control centres in the convoys and to main operating bases such as Greenham Common. This chain of American communications is matched by a NATO network. The commander of EUCOM, a US general, also acts as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, or, in military jargon, SACEUR. ln wartime he would operate from SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), near Mons in Belgium. SHAPE has its own radio links with the mobile launcher centres and with the bases for the cruise missiles. This complicated arrangement ensures that, whatever happens. US and NATO commanders can remain in contact with the launch crews. In theory, the mechanism should also prevent anyone launching the missiles accidentally. The missiles can be fired only if the operator types into his computer control a six-digit code, called a "permissive action link". Rather like a bank's cash-dispensing machine, the launch-control computer will keep the missiles' warheads switched off if somebody types in the wrong combination. For additional safety each missile's thermonuclear warhead incorporates a high-explosive trigger that is insensitive to shocks, from bullets for example. Once in its launch position, the two-man crew waits for any orders to fire. The men breathe air that is filtered to remove any radioactive dust, nerve gases or biological toxins. Each truck even has its own lavatory. Just when would any orders come? The main aim of cruise missiles is to deter an attack. Military and political com- manders would normally decide to use them only when a war in Europe was in full swing. lf the war was going badly for NATO, and the USSR was already using nuclear weapons, the West would turn to the cruise missiles to strike back at the Warsaw Pact. By this time, parts of Britain would probably be radioactive deserts. Western governments believe that the USSR would use its nuclear missiles and bombers to attack the targets that are vital to NATO's war efforts: centres of national and local govern- ment, underground military command centres, commu- nication links, air bases, ports and naval bases, army camps, ammunition and fuel stores, nuclear power stations and radar sites. By launching their cruise missiles, US and NATO commanders would hope that, at best, the Soviet Union might sue for peace, and, at worst, that the West could gain a few extra days when its conventional (non- nuclear) forces might be able to stem the tide. It is against this background that the cruise missiles' launch crews would begin their final countdown. If the message to launch goes ahead, the controllers would feed into the missiles' guidance systems the locations of the launch site and target. A hydraulic ram elevates the section of the launcher vehicle housing the four missiles to an angle of 450; the caps over the rear ends of the launch tubes fold down, so that the exhaust gases from the booster rockets can pass through; and the crew can then press the fire button. A solid-propellant booster rocket, with a thrust of some 3200 kg, blasts the missile through the cover over the front of the launch tube. After one second, controls in the nozzle of the rocket motor start steering the missile on to the proper trajectory. Five seconds later, the weapon's fins nip out. Between eight and ten seconds into the mission, the missile's wings and the air intake for the main jet engine swing into position. Thirteen and a half seconds after ignition, the booster motor falls away, and half a second later the jet engine starts propelling the missile for the rest of its flight. The missile carries an inertial guidance unit, an arrangement of gyroscopes and accelerometers that senses changes in speed and direction. The weapon's computer thus knows where it is at all times, without relying on any signals from outside. The cruise missile, 6.4 m long and weighing 1207 kg at the start of its flight, steadily drones at 880 km/hr toward what is called the initial timing control point. This is a place in the sky over continental Europe which marks the start of the missile's preset route. At this point, the weapon's guidance system switches into a preprogrammed routine in which it selects data about the particular target that it is aiming for. Military engineers would have worked out this infor- mation, and fed it into each missile, many months before. For British cruise missiles, the US Air Force's 7555th Theater Mission Planning Squadron at High Wycombe would have provided the data from four sources. The Supreme Allied Commander Europe says what targets he wants attacked. The US Defense Intelligence Agency provides data about the type, location and estimated effec- tiveness of Warsaw Pact defences along the route. The US Defence Mapping Agency supplies, in digital form, details of the terrain gleaned from sources such as spy satellites. Finally, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas, the main manu- facturers of the missiles and their guidance equipment, give details of the performance that their products can achieve. Using this information stored in its electronic brain, the cruise missile descends from the initial timing control point to as little as 15 m above the Earth's surface (so avoiding radar interception) and sets course for its target. During its flight, the weapon twists and turns to avoid high ground and to keep clear of enemy defences. Due to mechanical imperfections in the gyros of the inertial guidance equipment, errors build up with time, so the missile periodically updates its position with equipment known as TERCOM (terrain contour matching). TERCOM has a computer memory which stores up to 20 detailed maps covering small sections of the course that the missile is flying. As it flies, the missile compares its true position with the map using altimeter readings. As a safety measure, the warhead completes its arming process only as it nears the target. Arming cannot take place until 24 separate events throughout the flight have occurred in the correct order. Thus if the engine fails or the guidance system has a brainstorm, the risk of blowing up friendly forces is minimised. The thermonuclear warhead has a yield of 150 to 200 kilotons, equating to 150000 to 200000 tonnes of TNT, compared with 20 kilotons for the Hiroshima bomb. TERCOM gives the nearest thing to perfect accuracy yet achieved. According to tests with the missile in the US, of the missiles that successfully penetrate as far as their target, half will land within about 12 m of the aiming point. [] <2The tactical background to NATO's new weapons>2 THE US, Soviet Union, Britain, France and China have for many years had huge arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons in the form of ballistic missiles and manned bombers. These form today's big stick: their owners hope that, by possessing the ability to kill tens of millions of people and destroy the fabric of modern industrial society, they will prevent an enemy from being stupid enough to risk all by waging all-out war. Beneath this umbrella of deterrence are tactical weapons. If the strategic insurance policy fails, but the superpowers stop short of nuclear Armageddon, combatants will fight the war with tactical weapons. All the weapons that Britain and Argentina used in the Falklands were tactical: warships, aircraft, guns, missiles. Even short-range nuclear missiles are tactical. Their owners plan to fire them at an enemy's military forces rather than against cities or factories. In military thinking, NATO's new force of 464 ground-launched cruise missiles and 108 Pershing IIs fits in between. It is designed mainly to counter Russia's Backfire supersonic bomber aircraft and SS-20 ballistic missiles. NATO already has about 7000 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe in the form of Lance and Pershing Ia short-range ballistic missiles, Honest John rockets, artillery, bombs, atomic mines and depth bombs. Two thirds of these, however, have a range of less than 160 km; so the weapons could drop on the alliance's own territory if it ever had to retreat in the face of an attack by the Warsaw Pact. In 1977 the USSR introduced its SS-20 ballistic missile, fired from a mobile launcher. The total has now reached approximately 360 launchers, of which two-thirds threaten western Europe (the rest are in the east, to attack China and Japan). The SS-20j has a range of 5000 km. twice that of the ground-launched cruise missile and nearly three times that of Pershing II. The weapon carries three sepa- rate thermonuclear warheads, each with about the same power as the single warhead in a cruise missile (150-200 kilotons). While the SS-20 rocket is still in space, diving back towards Earth, these three warheads separate and steer themselves to attack different targets. The Soviet Union also has about 275 of the older SS-4 missiles and 25 of the slightly more modern SS-5s still in service. These have maximum ranges of 2000 km and 4100 km respectively, and they each carry a single warhead with a yield of one mega- ton (equivalent to a million tonnes of TNT). NATO therefore faces a total of 300 one-megaton warheads launched, against European targets by SS-4s and SS-5s, to- gether with more than 700 of 150 to 200 kilotons by SS-20s. Each launcher in the SS-20 system can be used several times, and the Soviets probably allocate two or three missiles to each launcher. Some of the SS-4 and SS-5 instalations can also launch more than one missile. In addition to the missiles, the Russians have several hundred Badger and Backfire long-range bombers, which can carry free- fall nuclear bombs with yields of one megaton each, or launch nuclear-tipped missiles like miniature aircraft. The British government bases its civil defence plans on estimates that the USSR would attack this country with more than 120 SS-20 war- heads, about 50 nuclear bombs dropped by Backfires, some 35 SS-4s and 10 SS-5s. They would also use Badger bombers and strategic missiles such as the SS-11 and SS-19 the latter carries warheads as big as five megatons). Compared with these totals, 572 NATO cruise-missiles and Pershing 11s may seem like chickenfeed. Soviet officials are taking the cruise-missile threat very seriously, though, bearing in mind that they also face similar weapons carried by B52 bombers and nuclear submarines. The new Foxhound fighter, a development of the famous MiG-25 Foxbat, is the first Russian aircraft to carry an advanced radar that can detect cruise missiles flying at low levels. During early tests in 1978, a Foxhound successfully destroyed several drones repre- senting American cruise missiles. The aircraft, flying at a height of about 6000 m. launched AA-9 missiles which dived to destroy the drones only 60 m above the ground. Soviet commanders already have Foxhound in service, and another two types of fighter with similar abilities will soon follow. The new SA-10 surface-to-air missile, being installed across the Soviet Union, can also shoot down cruise missiles. Already the Americans are working on improved versions of the original cruise missiles, and this continuous East-West jockeying for supremacy looks like developing into a full-blooded arms race. [] <2THE PRICE WE PAY FOR DETERRENCE>2 <2The West's new weapons do not represent a new dimension in warfare; rather,>2 <2they continue the strategy>2 <2that has kept the peace in Europe for 40 years>2 <2Michael Heseltine>2 THE YEAR 1983 is important for the North Atlantic Alliance. It is the year when cruise and Pershing 11 missiles may begin to be deployed in Europe. But it is also the year when the US and Soviet Union hold vital arms reduc- tion talks in Geneva. The events are inextricably linked. How the year will turn out will depend largely on the resolve of this government and of our NATO allies. Unless we show that we are determined to proceed with the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles, there will be no chance of progress in the arms control talks. Why should the Soviets remove their SS-20 missiles unless it is to influence our decision to deploy cruise and Pershing 11 in Europe essentially as a balance? The decision by NATO's ministers in 1979 to modernise the alliance's existing intermediate-range nuclear forces was unanimous. And it is modernisation that is involved. NATO is not introducing a new dimension in warfare; nor is the alliance even increasing its nuclear warheads in Europe. In fact, for everyry new warhead introduced with cruise missiles, a warhead will be withdrawn from NATO's existing inven- tory on top of the withdrawal of 1000 warheads that the United States carried out two years ago. The 1979 decision was taken after two years of intensive study. It was in response to the concern of NATO's European members (including Britain's then Labour government) over the declining capability of NATO's existing intermediate-range forces. The NATO countries were also worried about the Soviet Union's deployment of the SS-20 missile with its 5000 km range, sufficient to strike anywhere in Europe. The SS-20 is far more effective and threatening than the earlier SS-4 and SS-5 missiles. More than 300 SS-20s have been' deployed. Each is mobile; the earlier missiles were not. Each has three independently-targettable nuclear warheads: the earlier missiles had one. Since the early 1960s, NATO's intermediate-range nuclear forces have comprised American F-111 and British Vulcan aircraft. The Vulcans have recently been withdrawn because of their age. The F- 111s are ageing and their credibility as a deterrent depends upon their ability to penetrate increasingly sophisticated Soviet air defences. There are no NATO land-based missiles like the SS-20. NATO decided to modernise its nuclear capability to strengthen deterrence. If the Soviet Union believed it could exploit possible NATO weakness at the intermediate nuclear level, the risks for it from aggression would be less. The cruise and Pershing 11 weapons are also a visible symbol of the United States' commitment to the defence of Europe. They discourage any ideas on the part of the Soviet Union that it could risk a nuclear attack on Europe without involving the United States. But cruise and Pershing 11 missiles do more than maintain deterrence in the face of a growing threat. They also give the Soviet Union an incentive to negotiate meaningfully on arms reduction. Who can seriously believe that, without such an incentive, the Soviet Union would have the slightest intention of reducing its "theatre" nuclear forces? Britain's experience with chemical weapons shows what can happen if we fail to negotiate from a position of strength. In 1957, Britain renounced the production of chemical weapons and destroyed its chemical stocks. The Soviet Union's response has been a relentless increase in its chemical warfare capability. The talks in Geneva about intermediate-range nuclear forces have recently resumed. President Reagan's "zero option" is on the table. This would eliminate the nuclear missiles of most concern to both sides: Soviet SS-20 and older weapons would be removed; NATO cruise and Pershing II missiles would not be deployed. A major step forward in arms reduction would be achieved. This elimination of a whole class of nuclear missiles must be our goal because it is the best answer. But we have made it clear that we will consider other possibilities provided they are fair to both sides and involve no bogus counting. We cannot, for example, bring into the argument British Polaris boats which, like comparable US and Soviet submarines, deploy strategic weapons. The Soviet Union has previously accepted this point during talks about limiting strategic arms. Cruise missiles, then, are for deterrence. They are not "first strike" weapons. That is impossible--due to the numbers of the missiles, their range and slow speed. NATO has no "first strike" capability; nor, as a defensive alliance, does it want one. Nor are cruise missiles intended for fighting nuclear war in Europe. With our allies, this government is committed to the elimination of intermediate-range missiles on both sides. But if this proves impossible, we will proceed with the deploy- ment of cruise missiles in this country--reluctantly but firmly. And, of course, cruise missiles deployed in Britain will be here under exactly the same arrangements that have applied to American forces already based in the UK. Their use would be a matter for joint decision between Britain's prime minister and the president of the US. The Labour Party now denies the need to maintain and modernise NATO's nuclear deterrent. The Labour govern- ment acted differently. It entirely accepted the need for the nuclear deterrent as part of the UK's defence strategy; and indeed acknowledged, at the April 1979 NATO meeting, the need to modernise NATO's theatre nuclear forces. What has changed since then? Not the threat from the Soviet Union, except in the sense that it has become more serious. What has really happened is that, for internal reasons, Labour has been forced to abandon the policy of deterrence which has preserved peace in Europe for nearly 40 years. It is a sad reflection on the Opposition. It makes it all the more important that, as a country, we hold fast to the alliance and to the policies which have stood us--and the cause of peace in Europe--in such good stead for so long. [] <2A weapon to set Europe alight>2 <2Cruise missiles are unnecessary, divisive and escalate the arms race. What is more, they could>2 <2light the touch paper for a nuclear war in Europe>2 <2John Silkin>2 IF NEWTON'S third law of motion applied to the world of politics and democratic debate, no finer test of its validity could be provided than NATO's decision in December 1979 to deploy in Europe American cruise and Pershing 11 missiles. The justification originally claimed for this decision was twofold. First, the decision would strengthen the cohesion of NATO following a gap in Western defence which the Soviet Union's deployment of medium-range SS-20 missiles had exposed. According to this argument, the Soviet weapons opened up the possibility that, through want of any alternative means of preventing the Red Army from overrunning Europe, the US might be forced to initiate a full-scale nuclear exchange with the USSR. Secondly, the new weapons would encourage mutual disarmament in Europe by persuading the Soviet Union to withdraw the SS-20s in return for not going ahead with the cruise devices. This hoped-for train of events would eliminate the flaw in NATO's deterrent strategy that the weapons were alleged to remedy. In the event, the results have been the opposite of those originally envisaged. Nothing has done more than the cruise missiles to divide the peoples of the Atlantic alliance. Further, the arms race between the superpowers has escalated still more. Indeed, reports have reached the West of Soviet efforts to develop their own cruise missiles. The threat from land- based medium-range Soviet weapons did not begin with the initial siting of the SS-20s in 1977. Europe has lived in the shadow of Soviet SS-4 and SS-5 missiles since the early 1960s. To these weap- ons, NATO's response has long been the Polaris and Poseidon missiles carried on nuclear submarines. NATO decided to go ahead with the cruise missiles before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and against a background of Soviet- American agreement in the Salt 11 talks on strategic weap- ons. There were reasonable grounds for hoping that the Salt 11 Treaty would be ratified by the American Congress, prohibiting deploy- ment of the cruise devices for two years. This might well have been followed by Salt 111 discussions in which various new measures could have been put on the disarmament agenda--British and French strategic weapons, American F-111 bombers in Europe-as well as a continued ban on the deployment of ground- launched cruise missiles by both sides. Unfortunately, President Reagan's cold-war rhetoric has worsened the climate for disarmament talks. Further, he appears to have launched a purge on his negotiating team. Were there not so much at stake, in the eyes of many Europeans, the American government would warrant disqualification from the talks for not trying. The understandable anxiety about the cruise issue will not be dispersed by the British Defence Secretary's bland statement that the use of UK- based American cruise missiles will be a matter for joint decision between equal partners. Nothing in the agreements between Britain and the US justifies this statement. There is an agreement that nuclear bases shall be subject to joint decisions. The military advantage of cruise missiles, however, is that they will be fired not from nuclear bases but from any vantage place on land, particularly on roads. The result is that the agreement does not bite. In any event, from the American point of view, the whole purpose of ground-based cruise missiles is that the decision to use them can be taken instantaneously without consulting anybody else. It is, therefore, impossible that the US would wish to install them if they were subject to somebody else's veto. However, the fundamental reason for rejecting the weapons in Britain or elsewhere in Europe lies in a flaw at the heart of NATO's deterrent strategy. That strategy is based on the proposition that NATO could not withstand a conventional attack by Warsaw Pact forces with conventional means alone. Far from possessing cruise and Pershing II missiles as purely retaliatory weapons after an assault by SS-20s, the strategy is that it would be NATO that would first let loose the dogs of nuclear war. The acute danger of <1any>1 use of nuclear weapons is that this could escalate to a full-scale strategic exchange between the superpowers. This has been emphasised by a series of British chiefs of the defence staffs, by the chairman of NATO's military committee, by former US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, and by Lord Zuckerman, formerly chief scientific adviser to the minister of defence and to the prime minister. Instead of increasing the flexibility of our defence forces by rectifying weaknesses in our conventional defences, the British government is spending # 10 000 million on the Trident strategic missile system and is encouraging the US also to divert resources into dangerous non-essentials like cruise missiles. By equating cruise with SS-20s, the NATO governments may feel that they are signalling to the Soviet Union their preparedness to fight fire with fire. But in reality this is precisely the approach that is most likely to set Europe aflame and leave it a burning ruin. Nuclear weapons are infectious. The past 30 years have witnessed both an escalation of the arms race between NATO and the Warsaw Pact and a proliferating membership of the nuclear weapons club. The cruise and Pershing II missiles only aggravate this situation. They are obstacles on the path to a more sensible defence policy for Britain and NATO. There is still time for the alliance to rescind its decision of 1979 and turn its attention to more pressing defence priorities. [] <2MONITOR>2 <2Museum piece solves palaeontology puzzle>2 A FOSSIL originally found in the 1920s and recently rediscovered in the collection of the Institute of Geo- logical Sciences in Edinburgh, has solved a major problem in palaeontology--the zoological interpretation of conodonts. Conodonts are small fossils found in rocks ranging in age from the Cambrian to the Triassic (590 to 215 million years ago). They are straight or curved fossils bearing close-set "teeth", and some 4000 species have been described. Palaeontologists realised about 50 years ago that the separate elements were really part of a skeletal apparatus of some sort--perhaps the jaw apparatus or gill support structure of primitive vertebrates or invertebrates. But conodonts have never been found <1in situ>1 in in animal, and until Derek Briggs, Euan Clarkson and Richard Aldridge described their "find" there was no evidence to support the speculations concerning the nature of conodonts <1(Lethaia,>1 vol 16, p 1). The fossil was found in the "shrimp band" of the Granton Sandstones (Lower Carboniferous, 350 million years ago) on the shore between Granton and Muirhouse to the north of Edinburgh. Associated fossils include several crustaceans, fish, hydroids (?) and rare nautiloids. The environment is said to have been a lagoon, and the "shrimp band" is thought to repre- sent an episode of sudden flooding by the sea. The specimen is flattened and shows soft parts as well as the hard phosphatic conodonts. The body is 40.5 mm long and worm-like in shape. The head end is broad and the back end is marked by a tail-fin. The conodonts can be seen in the head region, set back a little and slightly scat- tered (see figure). A total of nine elements were seen in the slab and its counterpart and some more have been exposed by careful excavation. These give an idea of the arrangement and orientation of the conodont apparatus, but an exact restora- tion is difficult because they are scattered. In the posterior part of the body there appears to be a distinct mid-line streak and diagonal marks running out from it. A tail- fin on one side is marked by closely spaced fin rays, but no other fins are preserved. In naming the animal, the authors attempted to identify the individual conodont elements. The morphology of some of these was very like that of <1Clydagnathus>1 a "creature" known else- where in the Lower Carboniferous--and that is what the animal has been called. The relationships of the conodont animal are now a little clearer, but still not certain. The slender eel-shaped body and tail-fins could indicate affinities with chordates or with arrow worms (Phylum Chaetognatha). The possible segmentation could be interpreted as traces of muscle blocks in a chordate model and the midline trace could be a septum, dividing these muscle blocks, or a faint trace of, say, the gut. The segments are harder to explain in the chaetognath model, and the midline trace could represent a septum or part of the gut. In both models, the conodonts could be interpreted as teeth For grasping prey--in fact certain conodonts are very similar to the grasping spines of living chaetognaths. Nevertheless, Briggs, Clarkson and Aldridge are not confident that the conodont animal can be placed in either the Chordita or the Chaetognatha, and regard it as a separate Phylum Conodonta. The conodont animal has been found, but we still don't know what it is. [] <2Scientists make the first plant-animal hybrid>2 SCIENTISTS have become so familiar with the fine structure of living cells, that their manipulation and culture now appear commonplace. Intact chromosomes can be lifted out of cells for genetic studies; plant protoplasts (cells devoid of their cell walls) can be persuaded to grow into whole plants and much has been learned of plant metabolism by grafting experiments--for example the grafting of tomato tops to potato tubers demonstrated the energy storing capicity of tubers, although the --hybrid was of little practical value hybrids of potato and tomato cells have also been grown. But perhaps the most exiting develop- ment has been in the sophistication of techniques used to create novel hybrid cells from two or more different cell types. One example of this has been the production of specific antibodies (mono- clonals) made by fusing tumour cells and lymphocytes. Now Barry MacDonald and William Wimpey of the Department of Biology at the University of Hamburg, have taken this research to its logical conclusion. Reporting in <1The Phyrologist>1 1983, vol I, p 4) they describe their success in creating the first hybrid from a plant and animal cell. Cell fusion techniques such as those used in making monoclonal antibodies for example, have always relied on poly- ethylene glycol to fuse cell membranes together. The German researchers how- ever, owe their bizarre achievement to a novel technique in which the cells are hybridised by a "heat-shock" process. Placing in electrode into the culture medium and delivering an extremely short burst of current (a matter of nanoseconds) they found that the two different cell types fused together in pairs. (If the electrodes were immersed in the solution long enough, a stable temperature of over 200C would be reached). The medium contains a high concentration of long chain poly- unsaturated fats, similar to those found in some natural vegetable products. Cell pairs were removed, placed on nutrient agar and incubated in a warm (40-C) oven. By experimenting with the duration of incu- bation they found that fusion occurred after only a few hours, and that viable hybrids could be grown in a liquid culture medium containing glucose, monosodium glutamate, a mixture of vitamins, sodium chloride and extracts of <1Raphanus brassica>1 (common mustard). Using these techniques MacDonald and Wimpey have fused cells of <1Lycopersicon>1 <1esculentum>1 with cells of <1Bos taurus.>1 The resulting hybrid grows like its tomato parent hut develops a tough leathery skin. Field trials have shown that the mature --plant" has an otherwise normal foliage, although its flowers are pollinated only by horseflies. After fertilisation though, the flowers develop extraordinary clumps of discus-shaped bodies--microscopic exam- ination showes that these bodies are a true hybrid of animal protein sandwiched between a thin envelope of tomato fruit. Attempts are now being made by the authors to cross these hybrids with wheat cells, hopefully to produce a wheat-tomato- cow "superhybrid". Whether or not the fruits of such a hybrid could be commer- cially exploited is not yet clear, however MacDonald and Wimpey feel that they are on to something very exciting. With the soaring costs of producing meat and feedstuffs for cattle, the animal-plant hybrids may well have a promising future. It would <1be foolish>1 to dismiss this remark- able innovation out of hand. [] <2Have termites increased atmospheric methane?>2 THE methane content of the atmos- phere is increasing at a rate of 1.7 per cent a year. The rise began 400 years ago, following 27 000 years of stability. Whatever the cause of this increase, it may be contributing almost half as much as carbon dioxide in the global greenhouse effect. Although it is well established from modern observations that the methane content of the atmosphere is increasing at a rate of 1.7 per cent per year, about 600 billion kg, accurate measurements go back only 15 years. In an attempt to extend the methane data, H. Craig and C. C. Chou, of the Isotope Laboratory at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego, have anal- ysed the methane content of the air bubbles trapped in ice samples drilled from the glacier in southern Greenland. The samples go back over 30 000 years, and they show that after being constant for most of that time the methane concentration began to increase in 1580 (<1Geophysical Research>1 <1Letters,>1 vol 9. p 1221) At the end of the 16th century, the meth- ane concentration began increasing at a rate of 0.114 ppmv per century (parts per million by volume) and around 1915 the rate accelerated to the present figure of 2.5 ppmv per century--if the data can be taken at face value. The assumption is that methane in the air bubbles trapped in ice remains unchanged for 30 000 years, and this may be incorrect. However. the data suggest a change in atmospheric composition that could be linked with dramatic changes in human activity, first starting in the Elizabethan age and then in this century. An increase in livestock, and larger areas turned over to rice production, are possible contributors to this effect; a smaller contribution could come from termites. Deforestation provides suitable environ- ment for termites to spread and increase their population. R. A. Rasmussen and M. A. K. Khalil, of Oregon Graduate Center in Beaverton, Oregon, recently reported a study showing that one termite produces 0.9 micrograms of methane per day. If all termites in the world behave like those in their lab, they might together be prcducing between 10 and 90 million million grams a year <1(Nature,>1 vol 301. p 700). It sounds impressive, but this is only 2-15 per cent of the present annual increase, and it is pure guesswork how much of the termite production represents an increase caused by deforestation. So we don't need to worry too much about the termites. Perhaps, though, we should worry about the overall build-up of methane. According to Craig and Chou, it is already contributing 0.23oC to mean global temperatures through the green- house effect, and this is almost 40 per cent of the possible (but not yet confirmed) effect of carbon dioxide today. [] <2The purpose of porpoising>2 WHY do dolphins leap? Well apart from allowing them to breathe, and apart from the sheer fun of it, it appears that by leaping out of the water they actu- ally conserve energy when swimming at high speeds <1(Journal>1 <1of the Marine Biolig->1 <1ical Association>1. vol 63.p61). R. W. Blake in the Zoology Department of the University of British Columbia, who made the discovery, has even come up with a name for the strategy. He suggests that the term "porpoising" should be used to describe any aquatic animal that leaps out of the water and uses less energy than it would if it were surface swimming at the same speed. (There is some transatlantic confusion in the name as the British call species with beaks "dolphins" and those without beaks "porpoises", whereas this is reversed across the water.) Blake has calculated that for speeds of up to 2 1/2 metres per second, it is more efficient for dolphins to swim at the surface. At greater speeds they have a choice; they can either swim at a greater depth (away from the influence of surface drag) or resort to their "aquabatics". Porpoising becomes more efficient after the animal has reached an underwater speed of 5-3 m/s. Blake's mathemat- ical models predict that dolphins, killer whales and even some penguins can porpoise. The animals need more energy to propel themselves if the water around them is turbulent rather than laminar and Blake predicts that dolphins are able to reach crossover speeds even if surrounded by a turbulent layer of water. The much larger killer whales can porpoise only if the surrounding water is laminar, or at most half turbulent. Other aquatic animals, such as baleen whales and penguins, which swim with smaller body undulations are subject to less drag, and as a result have relatively high crossover speeds. In order to porpoise, baleen whales must reach four times their normal cruising speed--probably beyond their capabilities. Fish cannot swim fast enough for long enough and so cannot porpoise--but they do not need to surface for air and so can swim at depth to reduce drag. Although flying fish leap out of the water they do not porpoise but glide, using their pectoral fins as aerodynamic surfaces. [] <2Codeine without morphine>2 THE OPIUM poppy. <1Papaver>1 <1somniferum,>1 is the only commercial source of codeine, an alkaloid widely used in cough suppressants and pain killers. Unfortunately, much of the opium produced by the plants ends up in the bloodstreams of drug addicts. Many people throughout the world eat or smoke opium, the air-dried latex of the plant. And morphine from opium is illegally converted to the highly addictive drug. heroin, widely abused in Western societies. But an end to illicit traffiking in these drugs may be at hand. Crop scientists at Oregon State University, led by Majid Seddigh, report that another poppy, <1Papaver bracteatum>1, produes an alkaloid that can be chemically converted into codeine, but cannot be readily changed into illicit drugs <1(Economic>1 <1Botany.>1 vol 36. p 433). The alkaloid. thebaine, can be easily converted into codeine by demethylation. But morphine, the precursor for heroin. can be obtained from thebaine only by a series of elaborate and inefficient chemi- cal processes. <1Papaver bracteatum>1 appears to be a commercially viable alternative to the opium poppy. Native to Iran and southern Russia, it is well-suited to growing conditions in Europe, North America, Israel and India. Furthermore, <1P. bracteatum>1 can provide up to 37 kg of codeine per hectare, compared with the opium poppy's much lower yield of 3 kg per hectare. And the new poppy is some- what cheaper to grow, the researchers find. The seeds may also be a lucrative source of high quality seed oil, rich in unsaturated fatty acids. [] <2How selfish DNA promotes its own survival>2 IT IS now a little more than three years since four biologists caused a minor uproar among molecular geneticists by publishing in <1Nature>1 two papers in which they argued that a substantial proportion of the DNA of animal cells may exist for no higher purpose than its own propagation. The uproar was no doubt stimulated in part by the authorship of the articles, which included Francis Crick, but also reflected the outraged resistance of many biologists to the concept of "selfish DNA". Lately however, many of its opponents have been getting used to the idea. Just as well, because according to some recent investigations by American biologist Philip Shaa, an extensive family of DNA sequences with every appearance of the most blindly go-getting selfishness is probably at large in the chromosomes of all mammalian species, including our own (<1Nature>1, vol. 301, p 471). The idea of selfish DNA was originally inspired by the so-called transposons of bacteria. Transposons are fragments of DNA that seem to have evolved the ability to reduplicate themselves independently of the chromosomes in which they are inte- grated, and to re-integrate duplicate copies in other parts of the chromosome. This behaviour undoubtedly enhances the survival of the transposon, but--as Crick, with Leslie Orgel, Ford Doolittle and Carmen Sapienza argued, it doesn't neces- sarily do much for the bacterium in which the transposon is a passenger. Provided that it did no positive harm, they reckoned, it could spread unchecked under its own impetus. But they didn't confine their specu- lations to bacterial transposons--or even to plants and fruit-flies, which are now known to harbour similar transposable elements. The suggestion that caused the fuss was a great deal of the DNA in mammalian cells, which doesn't it first glance look particu- larly transposable, might have a similarly selfish character. In particular, mammalian chromosomes are infested with large families of highly repetitive DNA of no known function <1(New Scientist,>1 vol 96, p 664) that, according to the tenets of selfish genetics, may contribute to nothing but its own propagation. What molecular geneticists--among them Sharp--have now discovered is that one of these families does in fact have some of the hallmarks of a transposon, and more- over has special properties that would tend to promote its expansion in succeeding generations. The family in question is called Alu, after the DNA-cutting enzyme through which it is detected; and its transposon-like feature lies at its ends. The ends of transposable sequences have a sort of molecular signature consisting of short stretches of DNA that are direct repeats of one another. These terminal direct repeats are believed to be generated by the mech- anism through which migrating trans- posons reinsert themselves into the chromosomal DNA. Several Alu-family sequences have now been found flanked by terminal repeats. But if the terminal repeats explain how wandering members of the Alu family might get into a chromosome, what can explain how they came to be wandering in the first place? Sharp's explanation is that they travelled via an RNA copy. It is no new idea that RNA copies of genes can be copied back again into DNA and reinserted into new positions. But it just so happens that the Alu family is particularly well equipped to spread by this route. And its advantage lies in the particular enzyme by which it is tran- scribed into RNA. Real genes, that encode proteins, are transcribed by an enzyme (polymerese II) that has to recognise a DNA sequence outside the gene itself: once it has located that, it will travel along the DNA until it has copied the entire gene into RNA. But Alu sequences are not transcribed by poly- merase II: instead they are copied by the enzyme (polymerese III) that produces the specialised RNAs--(ribosomal and transfer RNAs) that are never translated into proteins themselves but participate in the translation of other RNAs. And poly- merase III recognises a sequence <1inside>1 the genes it transcribes. This means, in effect, that each Alu sequence that inserts itself into the chromo- somes carries with it the means to get out again and reinsert itself somewhere else. Of course, if the migrating Alu sequences are to spread to succeeding generations of animals, this cycle must take place in the cells that give rise to the sperm or eggs. But in fact, the egg cells are quite the most likely place for the cycle to occur--because egg cells go through a phase of very high and relatively indiscriminate transcrip- tional activity when numerous RNA copies are made of a great deal of DNA including some of the Alu sequences. All the Alu RNA needs then is an enzyme to transcribe it back into DNA. Such enzymes do exist--they are known as reverse transcriptases--but they are gener- ally believed to be exclusive to RNA viruses, which need them to transcribe their RNA genes into DNA for replication inside cells. However, if the Alu transcripts can once in a while, borrow the reverse transcriptase of a passing virus, there is nothing to stop them from propagating in increasing numbers in generation after generation of mammals. And it is thus per- haps not surprising that there are already so many of them among our genes. [] <2Where comet jets come from>2 Bright jets of material sometimes spurt from the nuclei of comets. It seems only logical that these jets come from active regions of the comet's surface. Not so, says Fred L. Whipple of the Harvard University--Smithsonian Institution Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massa- chusetts. He believes that the jets come from areas where material is evaporating from the surface more slowly than in surrounding regions. It was Whipple who in 1950 originated the "dirty snowball" theory of cometary structure, which remains widely accepted today. According to that picture, the comet's nucleus is a frozen ball of ice and solidified gases, including dust and rocks. Earlier studies of comets jets, focused on the short-period comet Swift-Tuttle, showed that they were made up of dust particles of about one micrometer in diameter. A detailed analysis showed that the jets came from eight small, fixed areas on the surface of the comet's nucleus. Those areas were originally considered to be unusually active. However, Whipple says that assumption leads to predictions of gas and dustproduction rates much smaller than those observed, and also would be unable to account for the formation of the Perseid meteor shower, linked with the comet. The narrowness of the jets indicates that the dust flow is being confined by some other effect probably gas evaporating from the surrounding areas, according to Whipple, who points out that broad, unconfined fan-shaped jets are rare. He believes that the jets may originate from "dikes"--a geological term for tilted strata or layers or others particularly dusty areas which might stick up from the surrounding surface. The faster evaporation of the surrounding material might undermine the slower-evaporating dusty regions. The undermined regions probably would have little mechanical strength, and eventually would collapse even in the comet's weak gravity, resulting in bursts of activity. [] <2TECHNOLOGY>2 <2Video wars. Europe's last stand>2 PHILIPS, the Dutch electrical company, is fighting a desperate battle to maintain a toehold in the Japanese- dominated market for video recorders and digital audio-disc players in Europe. The company has spent #1 million buying pre-recorded tapes in its V2000 format from film companies at the full trade price of up to #50 each, and selling them to dealers at #7 in an effort to get shops to stock Philips recorders. But, with rental companies such as Britain's Thorn- EMI backing the Japanese VHS system, the market share for Europe's only manu- facturer of recorders is still around 5 per cent in Britain and 20 per cent in Western Europe as a whole. Now Philips wants the EEC to take a hand in holding back the tide of Japanese machines, some of which, it says, are being "dumped" in Europe at below cost-price. The Japanese have now agreed to sell only 4-55 million VHS and Beta recorders in Europe every year, and to raise prices to those of Philips and its manufacturing partner Grundig. In 1982, Japanese companies sold 4-95 million video record- ers in Europe--roughly half their total sales. This, the EEC hopes, will give Philips and Grundig a "guaran- teed sale" of 1-2 million recorders a year. Although the Japanese could object under EEC law that this is artificial price fixing, they are secretly not unhappy. Up to now, com- petition among the Japanese has kept prices down. The price hike means larger profits, and a guarantee of demand for their recorders. But the Japanese are less happy about Philips's other plan. This is to double the EEC's import tariff on Compact Disc digi- tal audio-disc players from 9-5 per cent to 19 per cent. Last year Philips petitioned Brussels for this price rise, without even telling Sony, the Japanese company that helped it develop the digital disc system. The EEC should decide soon whether to raise the prices, and help Philips sell more European players. The move was necessary, Philips said, because some Japanese companies were threatening to sell Compact Disc players at "absurdly low prices". Philips says that although it holds patents on the system, and must license any firm that wants to sell players, the company put no clause in the licence to control undercutting. So Philips must hit even its own partner, Sony, with a double tariff. In Japan, the recent moves in the video wars have a cutting edge. The EEC's vice president, Wilhelm Haferkamp negotiated the restrictions on Japanese trade. In March 1979 Haferkamp visited Tokyo to discuss trade restrictions of a type the EEC is now imposing. He took with him a secret report which was leaked to the Japanese press. It described the Japanese as "work maniacs" and their homes as --rabbit hutches". Even now, four years later, Japanese businessmen quote this insult with a mixture of anger and shame. [] <2Wonder glass>2 EXCITING applications are beginning to emerge for dissolving glass, a mat- erial discovered accidentally in a telephone company's laboratory. They include a new way of controlling waterborne diseases, and of administering drugs to people with chronic diseases. Cyril Drake, a chemist at Standard Tele- phone Laboratories, developed dissolving glass while working on new insulating materials for switches. It is made by heating phosphorous, calcium and sodium oxides in a platinum crucible at 1100oC. Unlike conventional glass, it contains no silicon oxide. Its special property is that its chemical composition can be adjusted so it dissolves in water, soil, or human tissues at any predetermined rate. And as it dissolves, it releases at the same rate any compounds mixed in with it. The first use of controlled-release dissolving glass will probably be in the control of schistosomiasis (bilharzia). Dr John Jewsbury of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has shown that glass impregnated with copper kills the water snails that carry the disease, without affect- ing other orginisms. Jewsbury says the glass is as good as any slow-release medium--and it is much cheaper than others that have been developed. Although schistosomiasis rarely kills people, its debilitating effect is a burden to many countries in the Third World. Drake and Jewsbury have already tried out the copper-impregnated glass in Zambia, and plan to return there this year to carry out large-scale trials in village ponds and streams. Another use could be in agriculture. Glass could be impregnated with inorganic pesticides, then ploughed into the land. Or pellets impregnated with trace elements could improve the diets of cattle in impov- erished pastures similar pellets would protect cattle from parasites. A lot of work will have to be done before human beings start taking drugs in dissolving glass. But in a few years it could find applications in the long-term treat- ment of parasitic diseases, and even as a contraceptive pill. [] <2Japan trips the light fantastic>2 A HUGE ORDER of powerful lasers has spotlighted Japan's confidence that laser beams can replace mechanical cutting tools in many industries. Spectra-Physics of California is delivering 150 carbon dioxide lasers, each capable of delivering 1-2 kW, at a rate of three or four a month to a Japanese industrial equipment firm, Amada. Lasers are an economic way to slice mild steel if designs require complex shapes. They are also useful in --flexible manu- facturing systems"--robots that can be programmed to do a variety of jobs. The Spectra-Physics lasers are going into Amada's new metal cutter, the Lasmac 644. So far, Japanese companies have bought 700 Lasmacs (Toyota is a big customer), and US companies 25. "As far as the UK is concerned," said Keith Stand- ford of Amada in England, "it's in dispute which particular model will eventually be on sale here. We expect to take delivery some time after June." The cutting tool works by moving the metal under a fixed laser. The metal can move up to 1-9 metres in one direction, with unlimited movement in the other. A lens focusses the beam to a power of 10MW per square centimetre--enough to cut through 6 mm of mild steel or 3 mm of stainless steel. The company has tried to cut mild steel 12 mm thick, but the finish was very rough. Amada is Japan's largest supplier of metal processing machinery, with a turn- over of #300 million in 1982. Each Lasmac costs around #200 000. Japan's ubiquitous Ministry of Inter- national Trade and Industry, better known as MITI, is encouraging companies to try out lasers as cutting, welding and annealing tools. The ministry is spending about #1 million a year on lasers--and some of this money has gone on buying equipment from Spectra-Physics for Japanese companies to try out. Other cash has gone to Mitsubishi and Toshiba for each to develop a 5 kW laser. Mitsubishi has built a 10 kW model on its own, and may develop a 20 kW machine. [] <2Japan invests in adventurous robots.>2 THE JAPANESE government is about to launch a scheme to develop robots to work in "extreme environments", for instance in nuclear reactors. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has set aside #140000 for its first project directly related to robots. It will run for a year, beginning next month. The ministry has already sounded out robot firms about joining the project, which will bring government laboratories universities and research institutes together with the private sector. Among the companies that could take part are: Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding; Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries; Nippon Electric Company; and the robot- makers Fanuc, Yaskawa Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Komatsu. "Extreme environment" robots do such work as inspecting and maintaining nuclear power plants, developing the seabed, and working in space. Trade unions are quite happy to see workers replaced in dangerous locations. Numerous workers for subcontracting companies died building Japan's power stations, for example. Japan's Industrial Robots Association thinks that demand for inspection and maintenance robots in the country's nuclear industry will grow to #53-25 million in 1985. Last year Toshiba and Hitachi joined hands with six Japanese utilities and two nuclear power plants in a #33-6 million plan to develop robots to monitor heavy plant. Mitsubishi already has a robot for cleaning sea water intakes at power stations. Once the world's nations can agree on how to exploit mineral deposits on the sea- bed, the robots association expects the market for robots to do the job to be #4.2 million in 1985, rising to #35-9 million by 1990. Robots for civil engineering will be worth #23 million by the same year, the association calculates. But the biggest demand for non- manufacturing robots will be in the more mundane fields of warehousing and trans- port. The robot association calculates this will be worth #35.9 million by 1990. [] <2Last fling for the analogue gramophone?>2 HIFI enthusiasts who do not want to be involved in new-fangled digital tech- nology now have a fresh analogue controversy to get their teeth into. The Massachusetts hi fi firm NAD has launced what it modestly calls L'GAT--the last great analogue turntable. It was designed in Czechoslavakia, analysed by a Boston think-tank, refined by a German designer livingin the US and is being factured by the Tesla factory at Litovel, Czechoslovakia. The production tools were made in Yorkshire. All designers of hi fi gramophones face the same problem. The pickup's stylus must faithfully track undulations which are smaller than the wavelengh of light. To stop the turntable behaving like a seis- mcgraph, it is suspended on isolating springs. But these have a natural resonant frequency, ideally around 4Hz, and if this matches a natural resonance of the pickup arm, there is a disastrous amplification of background noise or rumble. The snag is that the arm's resonance varies with the compliance, or springiness, of the pickup cartridge, which the hi fi enthusiast fits. With bad luck the resonances match and interact. Traditionally, designers have made the pickup arm from a rigid tube to curb flex- ing. But good tubular arms are very expensive. In Czechoslovakia, where not much exotic hi fi is available, enthusiast Jin- Janda designed a cheaper alternative. He used a thin flat arm which is laterally stiff but vertically flexible. In Boston, NAD came up with a sprung counterweight which the owner can adjust to cancel out the vertical resonance of the arm. NAD says L'GAT is the first East-West collaboration on a consumer electronics product. It costs #100, which is quarter the price of the best hi fi turntable. British audio experts are suspicious of the design theory but acknowledge that NAD has a good track record for making inexpensive products that sound good. [] <2Dynamic dons>2 UNIVERSITIES that build science parks and --innovation centres" as a way of establishing links with business could be going about things in the wrong way, according to a new report*. After a study of academic enterprise in the US, Matthew Bullock of Barclays Bank, concludes that specific "technology transfer mechanisms" are less important than the willingness of universities to allow their academics to work for industry "on the side". Bullock's report says companies that emerge from such university environments follow a distinctive pattern of development. They start as technical consultancies, then move toward the development of a specific product. These "soft companies" are easy to start because they need little in the way of capital or staff, and they are less prone to failure than companies oriented toward "hard" products. Unfortunately for would-be tycoons, very few research-based acorns grow into full industrial oaks. Most successful com- panies are bought out by large customers who see them as a way of getting into new technologies. This, in turn, encourages enterpreneurs to "recycle" themselves--to leave the large companies and start again. [] <2Computers save laboratory animals>2 COMPUTERS are replacing animals in experiments by students at a teaching hospital in Texas.The computer--an Apple 11 Plus--replicates physiological functions which students normally observe in experimental animals. The animal's physiological functions are converted to a series of mathematical equa- tions, which are entered into the computers as a program. The computer continues to solve the equations, providing a complete series of new values each time an individual value is changed. The Integrated Functional Laboratory of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston is trying this approach. The lab- oratory integrates experimental work from basic science courses epecially physiology, biochemistry, and phamacology. The greatest number of animal experi- ments that the computers are taking over are in cardiovascular studies, including one involving shock. Other experiments involve the respiratory system, the nervous system, renal physiology and diuretics, digestion and liver function, and the phar- macology of the uterus. Dr James Walker, assistant director of the labotatory, estimates that the four computers will pay for themselves in two years because they reduce the high cost of buying, housing and feeding experimental animals. Computers also save time. The equip- ment is continuously available and no special scheduling is required, as is often the case with animals. The time to do experiments is also cut; the computer compresses into a matter of minutes reac- tion times that could take hours in animals. Walker says experimental results are now more consistent with textbook information and previous lectures. "We don't face the problems we have with some experimental animals, such as heartworms in dogs, which can often ruin an experiment before it really gets underway." The medical students are also being saved a moral dilemma. Walker says that although the animals were fully anaesthetised, some students believed they were suffering "Of course, there is no similar emotional reaction when the com- puter takes the place of the animal." [] <2Classroom boost for Prestel>2 BRITAIN'S Department of Industry (Dol) is about to announce a scheme that will give Prestel a much-needed shot in the arm. As an extension to its offer to provide half the cost of a microcomputer in every school, the department will back Prestel, British Telecom's viewdata service, as a medium for carrying educational soft- ware. The scheme could also shorten the life of a similar project involving the BBC's Ceefax teletext service. In recent weeks, the 14 regional centres of the Microcomputers in Education Programme (MEP) have received a batch of teletext adaptors from Acorn Computers of Cambridge. The adaptors will allow schools equipped with BBC microcomputers-- which Acorn also makes--to "download" programs provided free via Ceefax. Brighton Polytechnic has made an even bigger commitment to the scheme: it has distributed 20 adaptors to local schools, and expects to double the number of adap- tors in its field trial in the near future. The aim of the exercise is to show that schools can have free (bar the cost of the adaptor) and easy access to a range of educational software. There are drawbacks. Schools that have bought computers approved by the Dol but made by other firms, for instance Sinclair or Research Machines, cannot buy adaptors. Only the BBC machine will handle teletext. Even the BBC admits the Acorn adaptors are expensive at #225 (and some educationalists close to the MEP scheme complain that they are not buying recent technology). And once programs are provided on Ceefax there is no way that the people who wrote the software can recoup the cost from the final users--the schools. In effect, the BBC is organising a near- monopoly on software provided through television sets, and Acorn is the only supplier of adaptors to make the service possible. But Prestel, a computer-linked rather than broadcast service, and those organisations that provide and sell infor- mation via adapted televisions, are promis- ing competitors in the business of "telesoftware". The cost of adapting a TV set to receive Prestel can be relatively low. The Micronet service, organised by the publishing houses EMAP and ECC with Prestel, will adapt a set for #50 plus a low quarterly charge, and provide programs for microcomputers at low or no cost. Software publishers can charge for programmes via Prestel's response pages, and provide the back-up information that more complex software requires. Because teletext relies on broadcast signals, it cannot be interactive. The problem for Prestel is its dire commercial performance since its intro- duction in 1979. The number of TV sets adapted for Prestel has crept up to 24 000, and only 4000 of those do not belong to businesses. Prestel's introduction of a cheap, off-peak scheme, and the recent introduction of Micronet have pulled in only "a few hundred" extra domestic subscribers. Teletext--Ceefax and the ITV companies' Oracle--is a fairly big success. But Prestel does seem to have made a convincing case for its role in educational computing. A service based on Prestel would be available to all schools, no matter what computers they had chosen, and many teachers are keen to adapt Prestel, despite its limitations, to a wider use in schools. [] <2Computer call-up>2 WHEN engineers working for the Tokyo gas company, get a telephone call in the middle of the night, the chances are that a computer will be at the other end. The company this month recruited a computer and voice-recognition chips to mobilise workers when an emergency occurs at night or during a holiday. When the engineers are needed, all the duty staff have to do is call the computer through an office terminal, and enter the type of emergency. The computer goes through its list of 7000 engineers and site workers, classified into five groups depending on location and qualifications, and decides how many to call. Each employee has a code word, which the computer's voice recognition chip checks. If the right person answers, a pre- recorded message asks him whether he is available and gives information on the emergency. With 16 telephone lines, the system can call 150 people, get their responses, and print out a list in under 20 minutes. And if the wrong person answers, or the engineer cannot give the code word, the computer apologises for the disturbance and hangs up. [] <2Sound of history>2 AFTER a 35-year gestation period, Britain's National Sound Archive is finally opening early in April. The British Institute of Recorded Sound conceived the idea at a conference just after the war, and the record companies EMI and Decca backed the scheme with a few hundred pounds. But because there is no legal requirement to deposit records (as with books) the institute has had to rely on voluntary donations over the years. Despite this, it has amassed over 400000 discs and 20000 hours of tape. Although the institute now has a staff of 28 at its Kensington headquarters, it copes with the collection only because few people know about the free public listening service that it offers. But now the British Library is to provide cash and storage space, and help with a computerised catalogue. The public now has a better chance of listening to treasures such as the massive 40-cm 78-rpm discs cut during the Nuremburg Trials, or the 40 hours of tape recorded during the <10z>1 trial. But visitors will still not be able to hear a clutch of tapes that the School of Scottish Studies donated. They were given on the express condition that they will never be played. [] <2Astronomy--the next space race>2 <2As the European Space Agency chooses its next astronomy satellite this week, the 1980s promise a>2 <2"space race" where the leaders will not be the United States, but Europe and Japan>2 <2Nigel Henbest>2 THE EXCITING new astronomical knowledge we have gained over the past decade has come largely from satellites. The Earth's atmosphere blocks off all radiation from space other than light and radio waves (and some infrared wavelengths), so only optical and radio telescopes can see the heavens through clear "windows". We must lift detectors above the atmosphere to study gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet and long infrared radiations. But the dozens of optical and radio observatories on the ground are complernented by very few astronomy satellites. At the begin- ning of 1983, there were only two, both of which are over four years old. The International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) is still recording high-quality ultraviolet spectra, and the small Japanese X-ray satellite Hakucho monitors the sky for bursts of X-radiation. IUE and Hakucho are the survivors from the great flourishing of space astronomy satellites in the late 1970s, when the United States led the field with the three huge High Energy Astrophysical Observatories (HEAO). The second HEAO was the Einstein Observatory, which produced the first pictures of astronomical objects at X-ray wavelengths. The era ended abruptly in the first two years of the 1980s, when almost every astronomical satellite reached the end of its life. X-ray astronomers lost the Einstein Observatory and the British Ariel VI satellite. NASA's Copernicus ultraviolet satellite was shut down after a record eight-year lifespan. Gamma-ray astronomers were left totally bereft, with the demise of the American HEAO-3 and the outstandingly successful European survey satellite COS-B. This year however marks the rebirth of space astronomy for the 1980s. Two new satellites have already been launched, and plans are now firm for the rest of the decade and into the early 1990s. The perspective of the 1980s however is strik- ingly different from the 1970s. No longer is the United States the single dominating power. With increasing costs and generally static science budgets, international collaboration has become the order of the decade. The first launch of the year, on 26 January, typifies the new collaborative era. The Infrared Astronomical Satellite, IRAS, was first conceived by the Dutch. But its price tag of around #100 million made it too expensive for a purely national project, and the cost has been split between three countries with Britain and the US joining the Netherlands. In contrast, the Japanese launched a second X-ray satellite, Tenma (Astro-B). in February as a national project. But Tenma is still a relatively cheap and simple satellite, and Japan is looking to Britain for collaboration on its successor, Astro-C, due for launch in 1987. The costs involved in astronomy satellites cover much more than the detectors or telescopes and even the cheapest astronomical satellite now costs around #60 million. Launch on the American space shuttle, the European Ariane or an American Delta costs between #15 and #20 million. The satellite system that supports the telescope costs at least #20 million: this includes the solar panels for power, control systems to swing the telescope from one object to another, tape recorders to store data, and communications links to the ground. The receiving ground station may cost #10 million to install and operate over the satellite's lifetime. The amount spent on the telescope itself--say # 10 million--is only a minor part of the total expense! European astronomers have collaborated for many years through the European Space Agency, which provides some space-science programme. This money can provide one "medium class" satellite every 18 months. At present ESA has an X-ray satellite, Exosat, ready for launch, and is building an optical astronomy satellite called Hipparcos <1(New Scientist,>1 vol 95, p 31). The agency is also constructing two craft to explore the Solar System. Giotto will fly to Halley's comet in 1986, and photograph it at close quarters. The International Solar Polar Mission is designed to fly "over" the Sun, and was originally one of a pair of craft, but its American partner was cancelled in President Ronald Reagan's first budget. In addition, ESA is contributing 1.5 per cent of the cost of the mainly-American Space Telescope, which will total #600 million. With these projects under way for launch by 1987, ESA is now in a position to choose its next major space science mission. This was the task this week of the Science Programme Committee, composed of delegates from each of ESA's member states. Five proposals were originally short- listed. Two of these missions were Solar System explorers and therefore came under the scrutiny of ESA's Solar System Working Group. Kepler, a spacecraft to orbit Mars and study the planet's atmosphere, magnetic field and gravitational field, would have been the first European planetary mission. Disco, on the other hand, was intended to study the Sun from the Earth's vicinity and provide a sideways-on look at our local star while the International Solar Polar Mission craft flew over the top. Last month, the Solar System Working Group opted for Disco. Meanwhile, the agency's Astronomy Working Group was assessing three proposals. A new X-ray astronomy satellite, X-80, was designed to study variations in the intensity of X-ray sources and to investigate their spectra in detail. Mag- ellan was an ultraviolet spectral satellite, to extend IUE's work to very short wavelengths. But the working group settled on the third satellite: the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). Disco or ISO? That was the question the Science Pro- gramme Committee had to consider yesterday--and all the indications were in favour of ISO. The project was helped enormously by the launch of IRAS earlier this year, and its spectacular success. IRAS has proved in particular that a liquid-helium cooling system can work in space; and its cata- logue of newly-discovered sources--expected to eventually total a quarter of a million--is inviting a longer-term detailed investigation by a specialised infrared observatory. A superficial description of ISO does not sound very different from IRAS. Its telescope will have a mirror 60 cm across, and will be cooled by liquid helium to a temperature of only a few degrees above absolute zero; and its detectors will be sensitive to wavelengths up to a maximum of 120 micrometres. But IRAS is only a survey telescope, with simple detectors and a planned lifetime of around seven months, during which its main task is to sweep the entire sky and catalogue the sources it finds. ISO, on the other hand, is an observatory. Like observatories on the ground, or the orbiting IUE, ISO will be pointed to particularly interesting astronomical objects for thorough study. To achieve this ISO must have a longer lifetime than IRAS. Infrared telescopes must be cooled to within a few degrees of absolute zero to prevent their own heat radiation from swamping the faint signals from space: hence the liquid- helium cooling systems which make infrared satellites com- plex and expensive. Once the coolant has all evaporated, the telescope warms up and is useless. ISO uses 100 kg of super fluid liquid helium at 3K to cool the detectors and the tele- scope. but--unlike IRAS--it also carries 50 kg of slightly- warmer liquid hydrogen to provide the bulk of the cooling for the satellite. The lifetime of ISO should be at least 1 1/2 years. and judging by the success of the IRAS system it may well be 2 1/2 years--as long, for example, as the Einstein X-ray Obser- vatory survived. (IRAS, incidentally, is now expected to last for 11 months, until Boxing Day, with a 2 per cent chance of surviving into 1984.) ISO will follow an elliptical orbit taking it from 1000 to 39 000 km above the Earth's surface and will complete one orbit every 12 hours. Instead of recording data it will transmit them back continuously to tracking stations at Villafranca, in Spain and Carnavon in Australia. The sources that ISO will be investigating will generally be clouds of dust in space, with temperatures from a few hun- dred degrees down to only 30 K. The warmer dust clouds are found close to stars, either in dark nebulae adjacent to stars that have just formed, or in the ejected shells of matter from old stars, called planetary nebulae. Long-wavelength infrared comes from cooler clouds that are just beginning to contract to form stars. ISO should reveal for the first time the fine details of star-birth. Many galaxies beyond our own also emit a large proportion of their radiation--sometimes most of it--as infrared. It can come from dust between the stars, but distant quasars and other active galaxies produce powerful infrared emission from their cores, which probably contain gas swirling round a massive black hole. Looking beyond these, and hence further back in time, ISO may "see" the birth of galaxies soon after the big bang, something ground-based infrared astronomers have sought years. ISO has three detector systems for astronomers to position at the telescope's focus to investigate different aspects of infrared sources. A large semiconductor (indium antimonide) "chip" divided into 1024 radiation-sensitive segments can "photograph" the source at the shorter wavelengths of 1 to 5 micrometers. It may be paired with a newly-developed silicon-bismuth chip which will simultaneously "photograph" at 5 to 18 micrometres. The second system is a photometer to measure the brightness of a source simultaneously at 12, 40 and 100 micrometres with three chips made of silicon-gallium, germanium-beryllium and germanium-gallium respectively. The photometer also incorporates subdivided chips to produce crude pictures at these wavelengths. Wire grids can be inserted in front of the photometer to show the polarisation produced when infrared radiation is reflected from dust grains. Finally, a pair of spectrometers (Michelson interferometers) can split the radiation up into detailed spectra, covering the range 2 to 70 micrometres. From these spectra, astronomers will be able to measure the conditions in gas clouds that are obscured at optical wavelengths by the ubiquitous dust--for example in regions where stars form, and at the centre of our Galaxy. The spectrometer can also show absorption at specific wavelengths by the dust itself, thus helping to unravel the mystery of the the dust's composition. ESA hopes to launch the 1.8 tonne ISO on an Ariane rocket in about 1990. It has now prepared a short-list of five projects for the next round of decisions to be made in a year or two, although the agency warns that these more ambitious and expensive projects can only be funded at the rate of one every 21/2 years. The far-infrared and sub-millimetre space telescope (FIRST) would extend ISO's coverage to regions between infrared and radio, while the X-ray multi-mirror would be a very sensitive X-ray telescope. Three projects to investigate the Solar System range from a cluster of four satellites to investigate the Earth's magnetosphere, through a solar high-resolution observatory (in Earth orbit), to a probe designed to fly to the asteroid belt and study some asteroids at close range. But European astron- omers do not want to work only within ESA. Astronomy satellites are launched only infrequently, and each satellite caters only for those astronomers in a particular area, for example, infrared astronomy. Besides, the internal politics of ESA can be counter-constructive. The X-ray satellite Exosat should have been launched in 1977, before the more-soph- isticated Einstein Observ- atory. But ESA delayed it for five years, mainly so that this prestige project could be launched on the European launcher Ariane. The satellite is now ready; Ariane is not. So ESA has recently had to consent to launch Exosat on one of NASA's Delta rockets--an option it could have taken in the early 1970s which would have allowed a launch in 1977. France has chosen collaboration with the Soviet Union as a second string to its space science programme. Soviet space science suffers the disadvantage of poor technology, particularly in electronics, which is years behind that of the West. The next purely Soviet space astronomy satellites will involve only the relatively simple hardware of radio telescopes (Box above). For more sophisticated projects, including a gammma-ray satellite and a cooled sub-millimetre wave telescope, the USSR is collaborating with the French. A purely national project, however, can give a country's astronomers more freedom of choice, and assuages national pride. The major single nation in space at present, after the US and the USSR, is Japan. Its space science programme currently has a budget as large as that of the I I nation European Space Agency. Japanese spending is increasing at such a rate that by the mid-1990s the country may surpass the United States in its expenditure on space science. Moreover European countries are individually producing their own satellites, although on a more modest scale. Germany, for example, is building its own X-ray observatory, Rosat, to be launched in 1987. Britain has its finger in most space astronomy pies: it is a participant in all ESA projects (including the Space Tele- scope), and a minor partner in IUE, IRAS, Rosat and the Japanese Astro-C. But since the X-ray satellite Ariel VI, it has not had a national project. Astronomers in the UK have recently proposed a "British-led" satellite, the first X-ray mis- sion devoted entirely to spectroscopy <1(New Scientist,>1 vol 97, p 72). It is now being assessed in detail, the decision on its funding will be taken next year. The British scientists behind the mission--one possible name for it is Exspect--believe it will-become an international project, a move which will decrease its cost and lead to an earlier launch. The Americans for example may build part of the telescope and throw in a launch to cover half the cost of #60 million; a similar deal has given American astronomers half the use of the German Rosat. The outlook for American space astronomy looks fairly grim, after years when it has led the world. Very few projects are definitely approved, with the Space Telescope the major exception. This is the project on which astronomers in the US can pin their hopes, for it will undoubtedly be the single most important telescope of the 1980s. The only other major sat- ellite "on course" is the Gamma Ray Observatory. Few "moderate missions" are definite either, despite proposals that have been around for many years. The smaller projects lack the glamour that the American public and politicians have come to associate with the word "space"; and the larger missions are too expensive for NASA operating on a Reagan- sized budget. For years, American X-ray astronomers have been pushing for an Advanced X-ray Astrophysics facility <1(AXAF)>1 which would have better sensitivity and resolution of detail, than all other X-ray telescopes presently planned. AXAF was given the highest priority of any astronomical project by a national; review committee in 1982, yet its price of #300 million still puts AXAF beyond NASA's reach. It makes no sense for two countries to build essentially the same satellite, and the surge-tide of new satellites from Eu- rope and Japan is threatening to kill ideas that the Americans have had for years. ESA's decision on ISO will probably toll the knell for the Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility, which many American astronomers have seen as the next most important project for the 1990s after AXAF. The anguish of American astronomers reflects the two cur- rent trends in space science which are pulling in opposite directions. A national project allows astronomers of that country to take major decisions in building and using the satellite; and national pride makes it more likely that poli- ticians will produce the money for a national project than simply to join in someone else's satellite. But no single country at present has the money to build a really major new telescope to follow the Space Telescope--and the most im- portant advances in astronomy have always come with the use of a major new instrument, from Galileo's telescope of 1609 to the Einstein Observatory in 1978. Planetary scientists have faced this dilemma already: even after the spectacular Voyager results, the American pro- gramme is floundering. Although the next Jupiter probes, called Galileo, will go ahead at a cost of #6OO million, the next probes to Venus have had their budget slashed by half, to only #200 million. And European planetary scientists believe that ESA's advisers rejected the Kepler mission to Mars mainlv because of its cost: at #300 million it was twice as much as ISO, and would have left a gap of four years before anything else could be funded. So despite European bitterness over the American's cancel- lation of their craft in the International Solar Polar Mission, European and American planetary scientists are now already discussing possible joint missions to the asteroids, and to Saturn and its moon Titan. The lesson is there for astrono- mers too. The only route to a major new observatory in space for the late 1990s is a joint assault on the Universe from Europe, America and Japan. [] <2What does space astronomy tell us?>2 * Gamma ray satellites so far have shown the distribution of inter- stellar gas (where it is struck by cosmic rays), pulsars, and two dozen powerful but as-yet-unidentified sources. Future satellites will also follow up discoveries from balloon flights: radiation from the centre of our Galaxy and active galaxies and quasars, probably originating in gas close to their central massive black holes. * X-rays telescopes can now detect virtu- ally every type of astronomical object, from stars to quasars. X-rays generally come from regions of superhot gas (10 million degrees and above); the strongest sources in normal galaxies occur where gas streamers from one star fall towards a companion neutron star or black hole; powerful extragalactic sources include the centres of quasars, and gas dispersed through clusters of galaxies. * XUV radiation (also known as EUV for "extreme ultraviolet") refers to wave- lengths between 9 and 10 nanometers and is virtually unexplored; until recent year, astronomers thought that hydrogen in space would totally absorb them. Sources will be gas at temperatures of ten thou- sand to a million degrees; they should include streamers of gas in double star systems, remains of old supernovae, and hot white dwarf stars. * Ultraviolet stronomy has so far been dominated by satellites that collect spectra of stars and quasars. Absorption lines superimposed on these spectra reveal the constitution of interstellar gas. * Optical astronomy can benefit in two ways from space. The background sky is darker; but more important, images are not blurred by atmosphere motions. * Infrared sources can be studied only with difficulty from the ground, balloons or aircraft, because of absorption by the atmosphere. Infrared sources include cool dust clouds and warm dust around young stars in our Galaxy, nearby galaxies, and quasars. * Millimetre wave lie between infrared and radio (adjacent to the far infrared or "sub-millimetre" wavelengths), and be- cause of absorption in the atmosphere will be best studied from satellites. Obser- vations from Earth-based telescopes have so far revealed a wealth of spectral lines, from over 50 varieties of molecules in space, some of which are operating as natural masers. * Microwave background detectors over- lap in wavelength with millimetre waves and radio, but are designed specifically to look at the all-sky backgroung emitted by gas soon after the big bang. Satellites should detect small irregularities in the gas, where it would eventually form into galaxies. * Radio telescopes on the Earth have a resolution limited by their size, or, in the case of a pair of telescopes linked as an interferometer, by their separation. An interferometer swung around by the Earth's rotation will "synthesise" a dish as large as the separation of the two tele- scopes. With one of the pair in orbit, the interferometer swings around much more rapidly--reducing the time required for observing each source--and the separation is not limited by the size of the Earth: present technology permits a radio tele- scope in an orbit a hundred times larger, improving the resolution a hundred- fold over that possible from Earth [] <2The mathematician the world forgot>2 <2Henry Smith was one of the most important mathematicians in Britain in the 19th century, and figured,>2 <2after his death, at the centre of an international controversy. Yet his name remains unfamiliar>2 <2Keith Hannabus>2 AT ITS MEETING on 2 April, 1883, the French Academy announced the result of its competition to solve a problem in the theory of numbers. The Grand Prix was to be awarded jointly to the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford (recently deceased) and to an 18-year-old student at the University of Konigsberg in East Prussia. The contrast between the ages of the winners was remarkable enough, but the award was soon the centre of a public scandal as the French press accused the Academy of incompetence and the younger man of plagiarism. We now know that the student, Hermann Mink- owski, was innocent of any dishonesty. He matured into a distinguished mathe- matician who enriched many branches of the science before he died at the age of only 44 from a ruptured appendix. He is probably widely remembered today not for his important contributions to number theory, but as the teacher of Albert Einstein and the man who showed how the theory of relativity could be inter- preted as the geometry of four-dimensional space- time. In some ways history has been kinder to Minkowski than to his older rival in the french Academy's compe- tition, the deceased Oxford professor, Henry John Stephen Smith. Minkowski's name is now permanently associated with many of his numerous contributions to mathematics. But Smith's name is unfamiliar even to many of the profes- sional mathematicians who make regular use of the ideas he introduced. Minkowski worked in a vigorous school of mathematicians whose traditions stretched back almost a century to Carl Gauss. Smith, on the other hand, was isolated in a country just beginning to regain its mathematical confidence. Although Smith's contemporaries held him in high regard for his remarkable administrative skill and consummate powers of conciliation, few had any understanding of his real scientific achievement until the Academy's prize brought him posthumous international recognition. This attitude is clear in a letter written by his old friend Benjamin Jowett shortly after his death: "Henry Smith seems now to be recognised as the greatest English mathematician of the century. I did not know this during his lifetime, and used to think him wanting in originality because his mind was absorbed in the mathe- matical world." The Dictionary of National Biography concurs with Jowett and gives Smith the longest entry of any pure mathematician. There is no doubt that Smith ranks among the most important British mathematicians of the 19th century. Henry Smith was in fact Irish, having been born in Dublin on 2 November, 1826, but within two years his father died and the family moved to England. He spent only two years at school. Otherwise he was educated at home, at first by his mother and then by a succession of tutors. One of these kept a record of the lessons during his nine months tuition. This gives some idea of Smith's precocious accomplishments at the age of 12. "He read all Thucydides, Sophocles and Sallust, 12 books of Tacitus, the greater part of Horace, Juvenal, Persius and several plays of Aeschylus and Euripides. He got up six books of Euclid and algebra to simple equations . . . and . . . learned all the odes of Horace by heart." In 1843 Smith's elder brother died of consumption, a disease that had already carried off a sister some years earlier. His guardian now insisted that the family move to a healthier climate This well- intentioned advice proved disastrous, for within the space of one year in Italy Smith had suffered from frostbite, smallpox and malaria. The repeated attacks of this last disease were to trouble him for the rest of his life. Just before this, however, he won a scholarship to Balliol College Oxford, with which he was to be associated until his death. Owing to his illness he was able to study for only one term in the next three years, although he did put his convalescence to good use, adding fluency in French, German and Italian to his other accomplishments, and attending lectures of the French physicist Dominique Arago at the Sorbonne. When Smith finally resumed his studies at Oxford he managed to compress his delayed undergraduate career into just 18 months, during which short time he won the university's most prestigious classics prize and gained first class honours in both classics and mathematics. At this point he decided to follow a mathematical career and soon he had added the senior mathematical scholarship to his list of honours. Meanwhile his old tutor, Frederick Temple, had resigned and Balliol invited Smith to take over as mathematical lecturer. The demand for tuition in mathematics fluctuated so Smith often found himself teaching other subjects such as classics, theology and philosophy. In 1849 the university decided to institute examinations in natural science and in history with law, in addition to the traditional classics and mathematics. Although practical experience was not required, Balliol decided to build its own laboratory, and asked Smith to run it, sending him off to various distinguished chemists to obtain an appropriate training. At that time mathematics in Britain was emerging from a very bad period. During the 18th century there had been a slavish adherence to Isaac Newton's methods and notation long after Continental mathematicians had developed more efficient techniques. By the end of the century some English mathematicians could no longer even understand the work of their predecessors, let alone rival the enormous advances being made in France and Germany. When, at its first meet- ing in 1831, the British Association called for a report on the state of mathematics it elicited only three sections, on algebra, trigonometry and the arithmetic of sines, which almost completely ignored the major developments of the previous century and a half. But the tide was turning, and soon the subject was enjoying a renaissance in the hands of men such as William Hamilton, George Boole, Arthur Cayley, James Sylvester and George Green, who, unprejudiced by Con- tinental developments, began to open up whole new areas. Henry Smith did not, however, follow this new British school, but chose rather to work in the theory of numbers and elliptic functions, in which the Germans were pre-eminent. He returned to the original sources, in particular the <1Disquisitiones arithmeticae>1 of Gauss (published in 1801), and to the writings of Karl Jacobi and Ferdinand Eisenstein. It was Gauss who he took as his model. <1"Pauca sed matura",>1 (few but ripe), which had been Gauss's motto, became Smith's also. Like Gauss he would publish only when he was convinced that he had not only mastered the subject but had thoroughly understood all its ramifications. Anecdotal stories show that Smith had often understood the subjects of other mathematicians' researches better than they had themselves, but had not published because he saw further than they did, and realised that their results were special cases of a general theory not fully uncovered. In 1860 Smith's circumstances suddenly changed. The Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, the Reverend Baden Powell, died. (His fourth son, Robert, was the founder of the Boy Scout movement.) With strong support from within the university Smith was elected to replace him, though he himself felt that the other applicant should have been chosen. (The other candidate was Boole, whose name is cornmemorated in Boolean algebras.) Chairs at that time were not well endowed, and Smith supported himself by continuing to teach at Balliol. It was over the next few years that he started to produce his finest work. In seeking to understand and present the work of others in his <1Report on the Theory of Numbers,>1 he had in many cases progressed far beyond them. One of his greatest achievements was to complete the theory of the so-called Diophantine linear equations, a subject that had been studied since antiquity (Box A). His work was not confined to this one area, however. In 1868 he shared the Steiner Prize of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin for his solution of a geometrical problem. The judge commended not only his elegant and thorough analysis but also his lucid exposition of the work. In the 1870s he demonstrated that he was keeping abreast of developments in analysis too, with a paper on Georg Riemann's new approach to integral calculus. He corrected an error in Riemann's work and showed by an ingenious example that the scope of the new theory was not quite so great as some had claimed. His creativity continued unabated to the end of his life, but his effciency in administration and political reform soon led to enormous demands being made on his time. He was the first chairman of the Meteorological Office, keeper of one museum and secretary to another, governor of two public schools, two Oxford colleges and helped administer two universities. He served not only on the Royal Com mission for the reform of Oxford, but also on the one that looked into scientific education, and drafted most of its final report. But for most of his contemporaries it was Smith's immense personal charm, warmth and good humour they valued most. "His genius and accomplishments, his grace and gentleness, his sound judgment, his brilliant conversation are a tradition in Oxford, . . . He possessed in an extraordinary degree the gift of conciliation and could say the happy words which quell the rising storm", wrote one of them. His gentle wit was also legendary. A good example is provided by his comment on the way in which the first editor of the journal <1Nature>1 allowed his personal opinions to intrude upon its pages: "[Norman] Lockyer sometimes forgets that he is only the editor and not the author of <1Nature.">1 Smith himself insisted that his other commitments did not interfere with his mathematics, as that demanded a concen- tration too great to be maintained for more than a few hours a day. Nonetheless, it did almost certainly delay the task of writing up some of the results contained in his voluminous notebooks. This shows up clearly in the episode of the French Academy's competition. Smith first came across the Academy's prize problem (Box B) when browsing through their <1Comptes Rendus>1 in February 1882, though the problem had been posed almost a year earlier. He was aghast when he read it, for the problem was one that he had already solved 15 years before. Indeed his work not only provided an answer to that particular problem, but gave a complete theory of a whole class of related prob- lems. Moreover, this was not one of those results that had been confined to his private papers, but it had been published in the <1Proceedings of the Royal Society.>1 It is true that he had omitted the full details of the proofs, but the results sought by the French Academy were clearly stated and the main steps in the argument were given. Characteristically it was Smith's perfectionism that made him delay publishing the full proofs until he had found a way of checking his answers. The oversight by the French Academy can, of course, easily be explained. English mathematics had been in a contemptible state for so long that one could hardly have expected a solution to such an important problem to come from that quarter. Moreover, Smith was almost alone among British mathematicians in being inter- ested in that branch of number theory. Smith wrote to Charles Hermite, the presi- dent of the Academy, drawing attention to his papers. Hermite responded with a profuse apology for the oversight, and suggested that Smith could help the Academy out of an embarrassing position by rewriting his earlier papers in French, complete with full proofs, and submitting them by I June in accordance with the competition rules. "Then you will see that justice will be done to you," he wrote. Hermite was a distinguished mathematician who was well-known for his generosity to younger men. His letter rather suggests that he was trying to protect the person who made the original mistake. Smith was dismayed. He was just recuperating after a fall, was overwhelmed by other commitments, and knew that to pick up the threads of work he had done 15 years before and write it up in French in only two months was a Herculean task. Yet by the end of May he had done just that, and his entry was on its way. Before the competition could be judged Smith was dead. After addressing a public meeting in support of extending the franchise to agricultural workers he had caught a severe cold. This gave way to an acute infection of the liver, and on 9 February, 1883, he died. His funeral cortege was a quarter of a mile long, and the procession included not only members of Oxford University and distinguished public figures, but also representatives of the underprivileged, whose cause he had championed most vigorously. Hermite had presumably gambled on Smith's being the only entry for the competition, but there were in fact two others. One of these contained some interesting mathematics but failed to solve the prize problem. The second, that of Minkowski, contained a solution along the lines indicated by Smith in his paper of 1867. The adjudicator, C. Jordan, had not been a member of the Academy when the problem was originally posed, and it seems from his official report that he was not apprised of Smith's priority. In the circumstances it is, therefore, not surprising that he awarded the prize jointly to Smith and Minkowski, although the latter was technically in breach of the competition rules, having written in German. It did not, however, take long for the French press to learn of the Academy's blunder. Smith's priority in solving the prize problem had already been mentioned in one of his English obituaries earlier in the year. The fact that Smith's work appeared in print 15 years previously raised suspicions which were strengthened by the judge's comments on the remarkable similarity between the two entries. The Franco-Prussian war was at this time still a recent memory, and German mathe- maticians quickly suspected that nationalistic sentiment lay behind the accusations directed at their adopted son. There is an echo of their reaction in the moving tribute to Minkowski delivered after his premature death in 1909 by the greatest mathematician of the age. In his famous panegyric for his friend David Hilbert castigated the "chauvinistic French press" for starting "the most baseless attacks and suspicions". It seems unlikely that Minkowski would have come across Smith's earlier work directly, but he may have seen the reference to them in a paper of Ferdinand Frobenius, which appeared in the main German mathe- matical journal shortly before the competition was announced. If he was acquainted with Smith's work he would naturally have assumed that the French Academy knew it too, and that the point of the competition was to fill in the details of Smith's proof. While appreciating better than the French journalists the improbability of direct plagiarism, English mathematicians were nonetheless indignant at the way in which the Academy had treated Smith. For its part, the Academy was soon forced to issue a public statement to counter the rumours that had begun to circulate. This carefully-worded document rehearsed the arguments for making the joint award, while carefully avoiding any admission of the original mistake. So it was that Henry Smith, who during his lifetime had been famous for avoiding any kind of malicious gossip and for his ability to reconcile opposing factions, was, after his death, at the centre of an international controversy. It would surely have been abhorrent to him. [] <2ADiophantine equations--the shop-assistant's dilemma>2 The halllmark of a Diophantine equation is that the solutions should be integers (whole numbers). They are sufficiently common to have been studied in several ancient civilisations, and are named after Diophantus of Alexandria who wrote a 13-volume treatise on arithmetic in about 250 AD. (It was in his bilingual edition of the six surviving books that Bachet de Meziriac enuncialed the Four Square Theorem, mentioned in Box B.) A shop assistant will regularly solve Diophantine equations when deciding how to give change. For instance, to give 45p change when the till contains only 5p, 10p and 20p coins requires the solution of the equation 5x+10y+20z=45, where x is the number of 5p, y the number of 10p, and z the number of 20p coins to be used. The obvious solution of giving a 5p and two 20p coins corresponds to x=1, y=0 and z=2. Usually negative solutions are permitted as well. (The assistant might ask the customer for an extra 5p and then give him five 10p coins in change, which corresponds to X=-1, y=5, z=0.) One may also have several equations to solve rather than just one. For example, the customer might ask to be given equal numbers of 5p and 20p coins for use in a vending machine. That would give rise to a second equation, x=z. In that case the solutions that I have so far given to the first equation would no longer be acceptable, but one could take x=1, y=2, and z=1. It is, however, possible that there may be no solutions at all to a system of Diophantine equations; the assistant could never give 46p change using only the 5p, 10p and 20p coins. Smith's major contribution to the subject was to show that any system of equations of this sort could be replaced by much simpler equations of the form: each <1a,>1 divides all its successors. Here the X s are the unknown quantities. Smith gave a procedure for finding them and the <1a>1s and <1b>1s from the original equations, no matter how many equations nor how many unknown quantities they contain. As an example, consider the equations subtraction gives 20 v X =30. By writing <1X>1, = X + 2. and X, = Y we can replace the first original equation by <15X,=45, and>1 the subtracted equation by 20X, = 30. Because 30 does not divide by 20 one sees immediately that the second equation has no solution for <1X.>1 When there are solu- tions one can easily find them. For exam- ple, <1X,>1 =9 is the obvious solution of the first equation. The importance of Smith's method went far beyond such simple appli- cations, however. It forms the backbone of an important result in algebra, known as the Cycle Decomposition Theorem for Modules. <2B The Academy's prize problem of 1882>2 In 1621 the French mathematician Bachet de Meziriac observed that apparently every positive number could be expressed as a sum of at most four squares. For example, and 9=3. The case of 7 shows that sometimes three squares would not be enough. Bachet said that he had checked this for more than 300 numbers but did not know how to prove it. It was not until the late 18th century, that Joseph Lagrange finally supplied a complete proof. The next question that arises is in how many ways can one decompose a given number as such a sum of squares? It is clear, for instance, that 9 can be written in two quite distinct ways, as 3, or as 2+2+ 1. In fact the number of possibilities is even greater than this, for one could also express it as (--3), or could change the order of terms to get 1 +2+2 or 2 + 1 + 2. The German mathematician Karl Jacobi found a beautiful connection between the number of ways in which a given positive integer can be written as a sum of at most four squares and the sum of the numbers that divide it. Actually Jacobi's work went rather further than that, for he also found a way of calculating the number of expressions as sums of at most six or eight squares. Increasing the number of squares allowed gives one considerably greater freedom. For example, 5 can now be written as 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 as well as 2 + 1. Jacobi died in 1849 without publishing the result of the calculation and the explicit formula was first given by Henry Smith in his <1Report on the Theory of Numbers.>1 The prize problem was to fill the gap between Jacobi's results by finding the number of expressions as a sum of at most five squares. Now it turned out that Jacobi's method worked only for even numbers of squares, and that the case of an odd number was much harder. Smith had therefore turned back to an earlier idea of Carl Gauss. Although there are numbers that cannot be expressed as a sum of three squares, for instance 7, Gauss had managed to find the number of expressions when they do exist. Smith discovered an inge- nious way of generalising Gauss's main idea to cover any number of squares what- soever. Moreover, when this was done it led back to the study of linear Diophantine equations, a problem that Smith had already solved (Box A). By this means Smith could not only solve the problem for five squares but for seven as well. More- over, he could recover the known formulas for four, six and eight squares although his method was quite different. [] <2FORUM>2 <2In the land of the giants>2 <2P. V. Danckwerts offers his recollections of some scientists and politicians past>2 TAM DALYELL's article "When giants roamed" <1(New Scientist,>1 3 February, p 323) was strangely evoca- tive to me as I happen to have met (however tangentially) all the giants he mentions, as possible participants in the white-hot technological revolution that petered-out in 1963-66, as well as Robert Maxwell and Solly Zuckerman who featured only in an illustration to that article. Wynne-Jones I first met before the Second World War in the subterranean Balliol-Trinity physical laboratory at Oxford, where all the chemical kinetics were said to be catalysed by ciga- rette smoke. I subsequently bumped into him (and most of the others) in the otiose round of committees during the 1960s which did as much as anything to quench the white heat of the revolution. I don't think he made an outstanding contribution to chemistry-- rather in the Thatcher mould. C. P. Snow I met only at feasts at Churchill College, where he was a Fellow. He was amiable enough over the port. It is interesting that Dalyell shares an almost pathological dislike for Snow with F. R. Leavis, the scourge of the English Faculty at Cambridge, who wrote a vitriolic riposte to Snow's <1Two Cultures>1 lecture. Leavis didn't understand the second law of thermo- dynamics but felt this was quite irrelevant to "culture". Snow was involved in a whiff of controversy about some experimental results obtained in the 1930s. This put him off personal involvement in scientific research but probably provided material for his novels <1The Search>1 and <1The Affair.>1 Dick Crossman, like myself, was a Wyke- hamist but did not benefit from the outstanding facilities for scientific education that were available at Win- chester. In his <1Diaries>1 he refers to "isotopes, whatever they may be". A strange appointment as Secretary of State for Science in the atomic age. Solly Zuckerman and J. D. Bernal were roped into Combined Operations Head- quarters (COHQ) by Lord Louis Mount- batten, along with that lateral thinker Geoffrey Pyke <1(New Scientist,>1 30 July 1981, p 302), the inventor of the giant iceberg ship Habbakuk and many other projects which did not quite come to fruition. The last time I spoke to him, over tea, Pyke discussed the best techniques for committing suicide--to which he even- tually resorted. It would be impertinent of me to write of Zuckerman. I scarcely met him during my time at COHQ (1944-46); by that time Mountbatten had left, the influence of COHQ had much declined and Zuckerman had more important jobs to do. However, in a quiet way he probably did much to dampen ill-judged enthusiasm for Habbakuk. In the affluent 1960s he chaired a committee on which I sat and participated in the agreeable task of giving away large sums of private money to deserving research projects. On the other hand, I shared an office with Bernal in 1944-46. He had so many irons in the fire that he was seldom there. He was rather like a 12-inch gun with no gunlayer; he always turned up to meetings late and disoriented, although he had a middle-aged secretary who used to follow him about with his diary and try to keep him in line. I fear that too much of his energy and enthusiasm was dissipated on Habbakuk. I was amused that Dalyell described Bernal in his physical decline as being "surrounded by marvellous women". He always could pull them in, although it was hard to figure out how he did it. The girls I knew at COHQ thought he was particularly unattractive, but I expect his own girls applied different criteria. Bernal took a particular interest in the Normandy beaches. It transpired rather late in the planning of Overlord that what had been thought to be beaches of hard sand actually had bands of exposed clay. Bernal consulted French geologists and ancient documents about peat-cutting. He was also involved in the briefing of a Commando landing on a Normandy beach which was sent to bring back cores of the beach material. They used a probe designed and made by Sir Malcolm Campbell, the racing driver, who ran his own private cloak-and dagger workshop. Unfortunately the material at the tide-line was so sloppy that it ran out of the probe and no cores were brought home. Bernal was also involved in the micro-mapping of the invasion beaches which was so vital for the landing of our forces. Accurately-timed aerial photographs of the water-line together with tide-tables gave contour maps of the beaches accurate to horizontal metres and vertical centimetres, There was very nearly a breach of secu- rity because of Bernal's desire to be on the beaches by D + 1. His lank locks had to be shorn and he had to be kitted-out with battle-dress and ammunition boots. All this took some time and he was not a particu- larly military figure at the end of it. Bernal was of course deeply committed to the Communist ideal and was never, so far as I know, privy to any of the atomic bomb developments during or after the war. He would, I expect, have regarded it as his moral duty to pass on any infor- mation he might have had. At a time (1944) when one's acquaintances were casually saying "I'm off to the US to work on the atomic bomb" (surely a gross breach of secu- rity) I think Bernal was carefully insulated. Sir John Anderson, who had much to do with atomic weapons development, said he was "as red as the flames of Hell". I remember that on the day on which the news of the Hiroshima bomb was published he was jumping up and down saying "How could anyone work on a day like this?" Later on an obscure Indian journal landed on our desks, containing a crude representation of an implosion type atomic bomb. Bernal took one look at it: "Of course," he said, "of course that's how they must have done it." I don't think he was ever in any position to keep the Russians <1au fait>1 with American developments. An early copy of the Smyth report on the US atomic bomb project arrived when Bernal was away. I wrote an appreciation of its scientific and military implications for circulation inside COHQ (for example, "atomic hand-grenades are an unlikely development"--in answer to a serious inquiry). On Bemal's return he was under great pressure to make his own appre- ciation but he merely said "Danckwerts has said it all. There is nothing for me to add". This was all of a piece with his generous custom of letting his research students take full credit for collaborative research and leaving his own name off their publica- tions. I forgave him for the many occasions on which he had unthinkingly made me feel mentally subnormal. Actually, I had first met Bernal in 1940. He was then involved in civil defence and he took me to see a trial designed to show that air-raid shelters built to government specifications were death-traps. The explosive charge used, for reasons of econ- omy or verisimilitude, was an unexploded German bomb. This was detonated and the shelter duly collapsed. What impressed me was that there was a perceptible interval between the explossion and the time at which Bernal ducked down into our shelter trench. He explained that he knew the velocity of the bomb-fragments and could calculate their time of arrival in his head. It is ironic that the cry of the Left in those days was "Shelters for the people" whereas nowadays it seems to be "No shelters for the people". P. M. S. Blackett was the father of Oper- ational Research. Perhaps because of his career as a Naval Officer during the First World War he worked for a long period during the Second World War at the Admi- ralty. He was often to be met in Whitehall committees in 1944. One of his reasons for leaving the Navy had been his dislike of the social relations between officers and ratings--take three paces backwards and shout at them. All the same, he appeared a pretty imperious figure on casual encoun- ter. I cherish the memory of a lecture he gave at MIT where I was a student in 1947. He went on at some length about the idiocy of the strategic bombing of Germany and how the Red Army had won the war in Europe. This was not well received, and in fact Blackett's sympathy with the Russians made it impossible for him to get a visa to visit the US during the McCarthy years. We were both professors at Imperial College in 1956-59 but the impression I got was of a professor somewhat on the Kissinger model--a status symbol for the college, but not an approachable colleague. Although Blackett had been a member of the MAUD Committee--Britain's first approach to atomic energy, subsequently dismantled after the realistic appraisal that if anyone could pull-off the atomic bomb it would be the Americans--Blackett's love- affair with the Russians ensured that he played no part in the US wartime atomic bomb project or its post-1945 British successor. Robert Maxwell had a military career more glamorous than Blackett's. A Czech by birth. he was awarded the Military Cross for his action in the German Ardennes offensive of 1944, during which (I believe) he formed a unit of the Pioneer Corps into a fighting force. This was a splendid entrepreneurial venture and he has been on the attack ever since--as a one-man infor- mation explosion and the biggest influence on British printing since Caxton. I first met him during the early 1950s and I became editor of what I believe was the second jour- nal in the now enormous Pergamon Press stable. (The first was edited from the Vatican.) He is remembered for his period as a Labour MP (1964-70) partly because he introduced dehydrated mashed potatoes into the Commons kitchens. As for Vivian (Lord) Bowden I can only report that he once offered me a job in what was to become UMIST and was particu- larly accommodating when I asked for time to think about it. Moreover, he was not one to turn an able man down because he was an ideological waif--but that is another story. [] <2Wrong alchemy?>2 CRUCIBLE, Channel 4's answer to Horizon, is being scotched at a time when the new TV channel is capturing only 4 per cent of the viewing market in the UK. It seems that the programme is costing Central too much. Bernard Dixon (<1New>1 <1Scientist,>1 27 January, p 254) damned it as "stunningly amateurish". Submissions are being made by some of the Crucible team to continue making the progamme using Central's facilities. [] <2An uncorroded relic>2 <2Chris Skrewbowski believes the Holland 1 deserves careful research>2 ONE can ex- plain satisfactorily the uncorroded condition of Holland 1, the Royal Navy's first submarine, after 70 years at the bottom of the English Channel. The Navy's Submarine Museum at Gosport is restoring the vessel to her original condition and, after replacing a few missing parts, she will go on show in the summer. But unless she is analysed soon we may never know why the sea did not corrode her solid. Holland I sank in 1913 off the Eddystone Lighthouse. She was being towed to the breakers when she began to take in water (probably through the conning tower hatch which was only lashed down for the tow) and sank. The sinking was forgotten until 1977 when a M. Pearn sent a press-cutting recording the event to the Gosport Museum. Commander Richard Compton-Hall, museum director, said that the first step in salvage was to get any party with a claim to the wreck to relinquish it to the museum. The Navy was then persuaded to locate and to identify the wreck which lay in 63 m of water. Last August, Holland 1 was lifted and taken to Devonport Dockyard. She was in truly remarkable condition. The hull was intact apart from three small holes near the bow where some net shackles had caught. Corrosion and metal attrition were little more than would be found in a five-or-ten year-old ship. The hull contained a mass of dissimilar metals: steel, cast and malleable iron, brass. bronze and lead. The contents were expected to be badly corroded: in fact, with minimum effort bolts wcre undone, springs sprang, hinges opened and moving parts were easily freed. The main gasoline engine can be turned and its valve gear operates. The torpedo door opens, its closing spring oper- ates and all the hull rivets are tight. The electric motor that powered the Holland underwater is preserved excellently and there is great confidence that it will run. One of the batteries was sent to Chloride Ltd which cleaned it, filled it with electrolyte and recharged it. The battery delivered 30 amps. Holland I sank before the first nuclear tests and was shielded by the sea from radiation. The 20 tonnes of lead in the batteries has been found to have an immeasurably low level of background radiation. If the lead were ever to be sold to radiation detector manufacturers it would raise more than the #24000 it has cost to salvage the hull. It is a mystery why the submarine is so well preserved. Parts of the rudder which sank away from the main hull corroded as could be expected, so the answer must lie with the hull itself. Compton-Hall believes it may have something to do with the strong magnetic field found inside. He regrets that no one will volunteer to examine the hull. It must be done before she is restored. <2Strange Ingestions>2 <2Bernard Dixon has been digesting some bizarre eating habits>2 IT'S NEVER EASY to tell, when some- thing seems to be happening more and more, whether there is a genuine trend or merely an excessive zeal of reporting. London Transport (LT), for example, has had to put up recently with dubious accusa- tions that its trains have suddenly started running late. But the real explanation, it seems, is simply that the <1Evening Stan->1 <1dard's>1 Commuter Club has begun to high- light all LT's deficiences. And radio and television "commentators" have joined in the chorus of complaint. So rattled has LT become that it rounded on paying cust- omers last month and blamed <1them-->1 for damaging carriages, vomiting, breaking windows, and falling under trains. Which raises a further question, whether these activities are on the up too. So in suggesting that more people are doing weird things to themselves these days, I plead caution. Nonetheless, as an long-established reader of the medical jour- nals, it does strike me that we are hearing much more about increasingly curious self- administrations. Take Rinso eating. Only last week (<1British Medical Journal,>1 vol 286, p 765) there was an account of two young lassies in Australia who had turned up at a health centre feeling nauseous and gener- ally out of sorts. What proved to be the trouble was that they had been munching handfuls of powdered soap. "These patients turned out to be high spirited chums at school," reported Dr David Watson. "Not to be outclassed by their petrol-sniffing companions, they had adopted the practice of eating soap powder to obtain a 'buzz' or a 'high'." Tow this put me in mind of another clinical curio in the <1BMJ>1 (vol 285, p 1401) towards the end of last year. A woman, described by two Portlaoise psychiatrists, had not only taken to swigging Jeyes' fluid she had also become dependent on it. At first, she was tempted to drink this famous gardening aid and household disinfectant because of its pleasent smell. But having got into the routine of taking three teaspoonfuls in a cup of water three times a day, because she felt it "gave her energy to keep her going", she became really addicted and unable to cope without a regular fix. Fortunately, the lady eventually overcame her problem. Interestingly, while Rinso eating was unknown to its manufacturers, the company making Jeyes' fluid admits to several previous reports of persons taking a spoonful "as an aid to good health". Then there was the Indian woman reported last year in the <1New England>1 <1Journal of Medicine>1 (vol 306, p 1056) who had a craving for paper. A victim of the craze for many years, there were times when she ate an entire paperback novel in one day. "On the average, a Kleenex box and a cigarette package were consumed daily," reported Dr Fred Olnyk and Dr David Sharpe. "for years before her paper pica appeared, the patient recalled eating a special type of mud which contained a distinctive smell and could only be obtained by digging in a certain area of a particular field." But eating clay is commonplace. It even has its own medical epithet--geophagia. The extent of the practise can be assessed from a tale recounted in <1The Lancet>1 (1978, vol 2, p 614). A professor of medicine, visiting a medical school in Texas, asked the resident physician how many of his patients practised the habit of downing mud. The local man said he'd never heard of such a thing. So, when they had finished their ward round, the two of them went to each patient in turn and inquired tactfully whether they ate earth. No less than half of them said yes. So there. I don't <1think>1 that clay consumption is on the increase--no more so than some of the other doings in my oddities file, such as eating the Oregon rough-skinned newt <1(Journal of the American Medical Associ->1 <1ation,>1 vol 246, p 247) or performing bilateral orchiectomy (ie removal of the testes) on oneself <1(JAMA,>1 vol 241, p 2188). But unless I am much mistaken, the ingestion of strange materials really is proliferating. Sadly, some (but by no means all) such adventures are associated with mental disturbance. Another recent item in he <1BMJ>1 (vol 284, p 791), for example, concerned an unhappy lady who had been drinking Dettol for at least 10 years in order to "purify" herself. She had an overwhelming fear of syphilis, and the pattern of her tippling was similar to that with other addictive substances. Characteristic is a reluctance to admit the quantity consumed, drinking secretly alone, and taking gradually increasing amounts. From a scientific rather than a psychiatric standpoint, the most interesting aspect of these bizarre tastes is the opportunity they afford for witnessing the extreme chemical insults which the body can accept and overcome. The soap powder guzzlers, for example, quickly recovered and remained well, despite the alarming formula of their favourite snort: Rinso contains 20 per cent sodium carbonate, and a 1 per cent solution has a <1p>1H of 10.9. Perhaps the strangest case on record is that described five years ago in <1The Lancet>1 (1978, vol 2, p 952) by Dr M. Loughhead and two colleagues at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Tasmania. They began their paper with the words: "We have cared for a patient who, according to the textbooks, ought to have been dead, since his arterial <1p>1H was 6.59, well outside the usually stated range of 6.8 to 7.8". The individual concerned was a 51-year old man who had swallowed strychnine in a suicide attempt and who, in addition to severe muscle spasms, developed an overwhelming meta- bolic acidosis. But given heavy doses of baking soda he began to recover, and was perfectly normal three days later. The tables of physiological limits, it seems, need to be radically revised. And not only those tables. What of the claims that only micro-organisms can withstand strong acid and thrive in antiseptics? [] <2Softening the edge of social aggression>2 <2Herb Torrey reports some new fashions in furniture>2 AT THE University of Centreville, Maryland, a research programme which its director admits he obtained the money for by a far from rare academic tactic is showing some surprising results about human behaviour. Dr Julius Gray- ling, the man in charge, says that he would have had a worse chance of getting a grant from the Mandan Foundation if he had applied with a literal description of the work he wanted to carry out. In his words, "It was kind of a boon-doggie". What he applied for was funding for research on "The influence of geometry on social behaviour". What he really wanted to do, and is now doing, is research on the effect that the shape of ordinary furniture has on the way people respond to each other. Mostly, the furniture he has been concerned with up to now is the dining table. Grayling says that the idea was brought sharply to his atten- tion when a dinner guest at the Grayling home in Indian Landing, not far from entreville, showed unaccountable aggression during the meal. "There was nothing wrong with the food," Grayling says, "and there was nothing wrong with the man's mood before dinner. We were really bugged when he started yelling." Afterwards Grayling tried to think of some reason in the environment that might have had something to do with the outburst. It took him some time to arrive, only tentatively at first, at the conclusion that the hard, rectangular shape of the dining table could have played some part. He points out that a lot of abstract painting uses harsh shapes and that most people do not like it, preferring curves and gentle changes of outline direction. He made one or two experiments on his own. For instance, he changed the shape of the dining table in his home. As he is some- thing of a carpenter (he built his own sail boat for use on the Chesapeake), he found it simple enough to take off the right-angled corners and substitute curves. For six months afterwards, he recorded guests' behaviour, first with a sound recorder and then with video. The results were not conclusive, but there were certainly no inci- dents of the sort that had started his inter- est. This was the point at which he drew up his application for the Mandan Foundation grant. It was nearly 18 months ago now. Gray- ling found that he had a hard time getting people to take him seriously. But he persevered and now has three assistants from the students at the university helping him. They regularly find subjects to take part in a meal, not necessarily dinner and not necessarily at Grayling's home. He has a room allotted in the social sciences department and special arrangements with the university domestic staff. The students are asked, if possible, and certainly discreetly, to discover "guests" who have a reputation for a degree of irascibility. Grayling has now tried a number of different shapes of dining table, including circular and triangular in varying sizes. It is too early, he says, to base any firm recom- mendations on the work so far. But he has found at least one surprising thing. Whatever the shape of the table, subjects suffer almost without exception from what he calls "host or hostess deprivation". In other words, the distance that a subject is placed away from the host or hostess, plays a major role in behaviour. "It varies," Grayling says. "almost directly with distance. I can pretty well forecast how a guy is going to check out behaviour-wise from a table plan." He has methods of dealing with this. The obvious way of having no head of the table--the circular shape--does not work because of the prestige factor. Changing places during a meal would clearly be too disruptive. The solution that Grayling finds the most feasible at present is to have a circular table with a hole in the middle. The table he has built on this plan--only a mock-up as yet--is in two halves, each with a half circle cut out. This is to allow the host and hostess to take their places with the minimum of complication. Once they are seated, the two halves are pushed together. Then everybody is the same distance from the person he considers "top guy". Grayling reckons that he has about another two years of research to do before he can come up with a conclusive report. After that he hopes to begin work on the effect of the design of flatware. "There is a lot of aggression in this field," he says, pointing out that most people find pistolgrip knives and forks the most comfortable. [] <2Director's dilemma>2 <2David Challinor on the hidden problems of museum collections>2 TO COLLECT is a desire inherent in humans as is clear from palaeolithic hoards of tools and fetishes. Organised collecting, however, on today's scale, was possible only when nations became sufficiently prosperous to build and staff large national museums. By the 19th century, European domination of the world meant that vast numbers of cultural and natural objects started to flow into the new museums of Europe. The United States soon followed and, by Act of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution became in 1879 the US National Museum. Just as with its European counterparts, the museum's staff and facilities have never been adequate to meet the demand for space. Such space is needed to store and exhibit a range of national treasures. Directors frequently face difficult decisions of what to accept and what to reject. Perhaps a few examples of Smithsonian directors' thinking in rejecting and accept- ing material, or even releasing items in the collections, might throw light on the subject. General Motors approached the Smith- sonian six or seven years ago asking if we would be interested in the last Cadillac convertible from its assembly line. We had a collection of cars, mostly rather old, but here was an example of what had once been a great cultural status symbol. But the director of the museum decided that the car's importance as a cultural relic was more than offset by its lack of uniqueness--for there were still thousands of such convertibles in use. Even more important was the cost of storage. Better to gamble that a private collector would keep the car until it became rare enough to warrant accepting it, if it were offered later. The size of the car was also a consideration as space costs money. It explains why the institution has turned down such giants as the liner "United States" and the largest flying boat ever built--popularly known as the "Spruce Goose". Some collections are acquired through the museum's own initiatives. In the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, the collections reflect the research interests of the hundred or more curators. The museum collects, and accepts, objects that further our recog- nition of the world's flora and fauna. Once a specimen has been identified, the time and place of its collection is also recorded. When such data are properly maintained (now frequently on computers), the collections provide invaluable data banks on the nature of our changing environ- ment. For example, the widespread use of DDT in the 1960s was suspected of affect- ing the calcium metabolism in the oviducts of birds of prey (raptors). The abnormal thinness of the egg shells of many hawks and eagles was evident when ornithologists compared them with carefully dated speci- mens collected before DDT was invented. Museum specimens also enable us to determine the changes in the levels of methyl mercury in tuna and swordfish, by comparing today's concentrations with those at the turn of the century. Indeed one could plot the spread of radioactive stron- tium and caesium throughout the world by analysing bone tissue from the collections gained by natural history museums since the first nuclear explosion. It is not possible to foresee, especially at the time of acquisition, exactly what infor- mation a specimen might hold. It explains why curators are reluctant to discard collections. Nonetheless, even collections of natural specimens are not completely safe. Candidates for discarding might be hunting trophies willed to museums by former benefactors. Of little scientific value, they were primarily accepted to favour the heirs of the benefactors. With increasing pressure for storage space, today's director faces a choice: keep the horns or replace them with more scientifically valuable material. The burgeoning demand for antlers in the Orient for their "medicinal properties" is creating a ready cash market tempting the director to clear the attic of horns and antlers. Occasionally a museum will learn through new dating techniques, or chemi- cal analysis, that a specimen has been wrongly identified and thus should be discarded, or even more rarely, that it was improperly acquired. In 1981, the Smith- sonian returned an important religious object to a group of American Indians. The Indians were able to show, after lengthy but amicable negotiations, that the object in question had been collected without proper tribal authorisation in 1887! [] Despite the egress of isolated specimens, museum collections grow in proportion to the director's burden of deciding what to accept. The day when every museum attic will be filled can be delayed. Preservation and storage of specimens will become more efficient. Computerised storage and retrieval is already here. Perhaps develop- ments in electronically stored holograms will reduce the need to keep very large suites of specimens. However, lack of space will remain, but by keeping the models and micro-filmed plans and specifications, the "soul", if not the body, of objects as large as battleships can be saved. Collect we will, but the dilemmas will remain. [] Dr David Challinor is the assisiant secretary for science at tho Smithsonian Institution. Washington. <2Editor's collection>2 COMPANIES cannot buy their way into these pages by sending free gifts to the editor. They know that, but perhaps one well-known American maker of tape--magnetic and adhesive--has found a new ploy. The company sent the editor a gift of a new product, with his name emblazoned all over the top. We would not be mentioning that event in these pages were it not for the misspelling of his name--something confused with a food mixer. Is this a stupid mistake or a clever ploy that succeeded? [] <2Still no clear road for lead>2 <2Tam Dalyell muses on the need to control a pernicious form of pollution>2 WHO HAS ever heard of a popular tax The American colonists certainly took exception to Britain's tea levy in 1773. Ten years earlier, though, back in the motherland, Lord Bute's administration drove hitherto placid Devonians, Men of Kent and Kentish Men into a frenzy by introducing a "cider tax". Both measures had been designed to help Britain pay for an extended and expensive war with France. The Boston tea-party was a famous turning point in history and grossly misin- terpreted by West- minster. Our parlia- mentarians, always sensitive to votes, had probably shown a greater concern over the cider riots! There is perhaps an element of do-gooding about certain taxes and even today there are Treasury ministers who smugly claim they are doing the nation's health a favour by putting up the levy on cigarettes, alcohol and petrol. Two hundred years ago, those people who drank substan- tial quantities of cider often suffered a strange disability dubbed the Devonshire colic. But what neither minister nor the exciseman of the 18th century realised was that the underlying cause was lead poisoning. It took the expertise of the Royal Physician, Sir George Baker, to prove that--but then he was a Devonian. Lead got into the cider through all sorts of routes. The harvested apples piled up in the fields and were welcomed by numerous rabbits. The scrumping rodents, given a blast of lead shot, provided the farmer with a ready source of pot-stew. Later he would gather up the apples (and shot) and put them in his cider press--the stones of which were braced with lead straps. Curiously, if the cider was sour, the practice was to sweeten it by shaking it with some lead shot before storing it in barrels held together by lead bands. Perhaps, though, most of the lead came in the water used to make the cider: the purer the water in contact with air the better it was at oxidising and dissolving lead from conduits, pipes and cisterns. Lead, in the 19th and early-20th centu- ries, was responsible for a host of occupational disabilities among house painters, plumbers, glaziers, dyers, printers and potters to mention but a few. Only slowly did the various industries realise that they had to better the "lot" of their workers and reduce the occupational risk. In recent decades communities in the United States and Europe have been confronted by the realisation that lead can severely retard the mental development of their children. A UK working party, which included many medically qualified people, was set up by the Department of Health and Social Security, under the chairmanship of Professor Patrick Lawther in 1978. When eventually its report, <1Lead and Health>1, was published in 1980, various environmental groups damned it for being too meek. But actually it emphasised that various communities, including some in West Scotland, were still at risk because their houses were served by lead pipes and lead-lined cisterns. (Rumour has it that a diet of Scottish scones and cookies can alleviate some of the effects of lead. So also can treat- ing the water in ion-exchange systems but sometimes it produces other side effects.) Far more invid- ious, as we now know, is the lead in air that comes mainly from petrol. Experts did not, and still do not, agree on the levels of lead that get into the bloodstream specifically by this route. Some say it is 0.5 microgram per cubic metre. The Lawther report said that the annual average concentration in air should not exceed 2ug/cu.m. The report was criticised for not calling for urgent action to reduce lead in petrol. Efforts are now being made to reduce it to two-thirds of its level now by 1985. However, Ken Collins, chairman of the Environment Committee of the European Parliament, has recently been predicting a total EEC ban on lacing petrol with lead before the end of June. Well intentioned as the EEC goal is, it is worth remembering that four out of five cars would be unable to run if the lead were removed. So what effective alternatives are there? Methyl tertiary butyl ether could work as substitute for lead but it is expensive. A more practical idea would be to fix filters to car exhausts, but they would have to be changed fairly frequently. Besides being free from "knocking", an engine must start from cold and operate reliably under all conditions. The volatility of the fuel is crucial, and the addition of an alcohol-blending component would inter- fere with this. If the politicians were to take the drastic action that many voices are call- ing for, much of our motorised transport would not even get out of the garage. The House of Commons would see lobbies as never before. For society, lead is a high risk material. However, its immediate and total removal, or ban, could bring much of industry to a halt. It is vital that we tackle with urgency both sides of the problem. [] <2REVIEW>2 <2Cataloguing the things of the world>2 Universal languages and scientific taxonomy in the 17th century by M. M. Slaughter, <1Cambridge UP, pp 277, #25>1 E. J. W. Barrington THE PRESENT generation of scientists is not the first to have been troubled by problems of communication, as Dr Slaughter shows in this well- documented account of the rise and fall of the 17th century universal movement. Recondite though her theme may be, she succeeds, by focusing on its scientific aspects, in demonstra- ting that it is not without rele- vance to our own times, as becomes immediately apparent when she finds the origin of the movement in an information explosion. The invention of printing in the 16th century had resulted in a rapid spread of literacy. but many of those who were ready to benefit from it could not read Latin, which had been the normal basis for scholarly inter- change. Communication with new readership had therefore to be by means of the vernacular. This, however, had previously reflected a largely oral culture. so that it lacked the technical vocabulary needed to accom- modate the translations of clas- sical texts. The difficulty was com- pounded by the new knowledge that was becoming available through the flowering of 17th century science. New words and names were essential if the new knowledge was to be effectively communicated, and they would have to be clearly defined. Attempts to create from English some terms that could be self-defining (for example, <1witchcraft for logic)>1 were short- lived. A more promising approach seemed to be the invention of a new and universal language and writing system, and Slaughter gives a fascinating and commendably deadpan account of the attempts of "language projectors" to achieve this objective. Some were based on ideographic signs (real char- acters, so-called) which directly expressed "things" or notions of "things". There was Lodowyck's uni- versal language, for instance, in which a sign for a radical (eg primitive verb, <1to light>1) was set on a musical stave, with signs for augmentation leg that where- with the thing is acted) set adjacent to it. This example could be read as "light shineth" in a transcription of the first chapter of St John's Gospel. And there was Bishop Godwin, who, having invented in <1Man in the Moone>1 a hero who discovered a lunar language formed of "tunes and uncouth sounds", conceived the possi- bilty of framing an earthbound language "consisting of tunes only". Slaughter's description of this as "whimsical" is about as far as her detached sense of scholarship allows her to go in appraising some of these eccentricities. Later and more advanced projects were attempts at philo- sophical languages, based, as the author explains in some detail, upon theories and analyses of nature, and presenting scientific models of it. Descartes had held that such a language could be so devised as to "assist men's judgement, representing matters so clearly that it would be almost impossible to go wrong". Surely a forlorn ambition, but it goes some way to explain, what would otherwise be so dif- ficult to understand, why emi- nent members of the nascent > Royal Society (including Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, John Ray and Isaac Newton) were so keenly interested in these ventures. Many lines of thought were eventually brought together in the 454 folio pages of Bishop Wilkins's <1Essay Towards a>1 <1Real Character and Philosophi->1 <1cal Language,>1 which Slaughter deems a monument to that time "when western Europe entered upon the early modern period of its specialised scientific and technical development". It was an encyclopedic work, setting out the concept of a universal language as a comprehensive taxonomic structure. The re- quirements were a thorough cataloguing of the "things of the world", the assigning to them of marks or names, and the defi- ning of the groups to which they belonged. This was essentially a biologi- cal approach, influenced by the taxonomic studies of Ray, and it aroused so much interest that Ray himself undertook a Latin translation. Samuel Pepys records purchasing a copy of the <1Essay>1 on 15 May, 1668, and it so pleased the Sovereign that he promoted the author from the Secretaryship of the Royal Society to the See of Chester. Nevertheless, its reception was mixed, and interest began to wane with the death of Bishop Wilkins in 1672. Indeed, the movement as a whole had only a brief life, and by the 1690s it was already becoming past history. Dr Slaughter brings her very read- able survey to a close with an appraisal of the change in atmosphere in the concluding decades of the 17th century. Latin began to regain its status as the medium for elegant com- munication, science was being relegated to "a small, odd, insignificant band of professionals", while the Royal Society, abandoning the rather splendid hope that scientific lan- guage could provide a model for cultural discourse, was becoming influenced by dilet- tantism, and correspondingly less practical in its aims. Overriding all these consid- erations, however, is her forth- right view that these linguistic schemes were ultimately non- sense, for the excellent reason that artificial languages are not compatible with the ways in which man and languages actu- ally operate. There is surely a lesson here for us, as we turn to information technology for solutions to our own problems of commu- nication. [] <2Television within a book jacket>2 <2Nova--adventures in science>2 by WGBH/Boston <1Addison-Wesley 288 #20.95 pbk #11.20>1 Peter Goodchild IT CAN be no easy task making a satisfactory book out of a disparate collection of television scripts, but with one glaring exception <1Nova>1 has achieved just that. The book is based on the scripts of programmes broadcast in the Nova television series on America's Public Broadcasting System. About a third of these scripts are, in turn, derived from BBC Horizon programmes which are bought or co- produced by Nova and shown in the series. The subject matter of the book is indeed disparate and ranges from endorphins to the secrets of the great violin makers. Yet the original scripts have been edited, rewritten and sometimes fused together into chapters which have then been organised into four main sections. Those sections, dealing in turn with the origins of life and man, the exploration of our Solar System, medical research, and finally sundry technologies, have--except for this last section--been organised with considerable coherence. The book has then been very well illustrated with well- designed coloured graphics and good photographic selections to provide a book that can either be dipped into or read with satis- faction from cover to cover. Although the writing is fairly liberally sprinkled with Ameri- can cliche/, it does achieve a level of content that seems well suited to the interested layman. However, the book does have one major drawback. Despite the lavish production, it shows all the signs of being assembled in great haste. I should, at this point, declare my interest as being associated with Horizon, but it is through this link that I know that not one of the producers involved with BBC productions was consulted in any way during the writing of the book. The result is that, chapter after chapter, there are errors ranging from factual detail to total distortion through drastic editing. For example, the chapter on "Touch", with its emphasis on animal experimentation, severely distorts the balance of the original programme. Then as an example of actual error, in the chapter on Legionnaire's disease, Joseph McDade is des- cribed as re-examining diseased human tissue and discovering multiplying colonies of disease organisms. In fact he was work- ing on slides of animal tissue which was fixed, sliced, stained and therefore as dead as a door- nail. In re-examining the slides McDade came across a colony he had just not seen previously. Given that this was a central and crucial part of the film's argument, the error is even more revealing as to the lack of care taken. I am at a loss to understand why, except for commercial reasons, the rush to publish was necessary. By doing so, the publisher has marred what could have been an excellent publication, but, equally im- portant. it has devalued the work of both the Horizon and Nova staff who produced the original programmes. It can only be hoped that, should the book go to a second edition, the publishers will make time to consult properly and correct the errors. [] <2Telecommunications--a technology for change>2 IT IS EASY to write off the Sci- ence Museum as somewhere you have already visited. But, like all good muse- ums, the Science Museum in South Kensington, London, is always changing its exhibits. There is also a fair sense of fun about the place; the lunar mock-up has signs warning kids to "Keep on the Moon". Upstairs, over the Moon, there is now a large new gallery sponsored by STC to mark both the company's cen- tenary and World Commu- nications Year. The <1Telecommunications--a>1 <1Technology for Change>1 has everything you would expect, plus more. The best exhibits at the gallery are the mock-ups of old telegraph offices, exchanges and wireless ops rooms. For instance, there's a 19th century telegraph relay station, where human operators function like modern amplifiers--they receive a weak signal and tap it out again for the next leg of the journey. In 1872, it took 10 hours and 12 relay stations to telegraph Australia. There's also a fascinating mock-up of the wireless operator's cubby- hole in a Lancaster bomber, though unfortunately the glass window separating this exhibit from the public throws up unwanted reflections. Ex-schoolboy army cadets will feel a twinge of nostalgia on sight of an old 38 walkie- talkie set, which worked, in a loose manner of speaking, on batteries in the 7.3-8.9 MHz band. After the war, the army dumped thousands of these sets on cadet forces, where they were treated far harder than in any battle zone. The Science Museum set comes from the Guildford Grammar School, and looks in remark- ably good order. Per- haps Guildford schoolboys are more gentle than the rest. Alongside the old telegraph equipment, old telephones, old radios and old cables, there is Prestel, optic fibres and some of the not-very-exciting new tele- phones available in Britain. But if you want a glimpse of the future of telecoms in Britain, take a walk down Tottenham Court Road, where most of the exotic telephones on sale are not approved by the Depart- ment of Industry. Take the time at the gallery to see what a communications satellite looks like at close quarters, or one of the first budget 405-line TV sets sold by Pye in 1938. It cost #25, with a 5-inch cathode-ray tube as the screen. Or listen, on Bell Lab discs, to the first trans- atlantic phone calls by radio. An HMSO booklet* of the same name covers much of the same ground. The prepon- derance of pictures means that the sparse text glosses over some points and tantalises on others. According to the author, for instance, in the early days of telephone tech- nology, the Post Office was sued by the patent holders and "even sabotage was resorted to". It would be nice to know more. Eryl Davies also predicts that the "cost of telephone may well become trivial". At the current cost of local calls in Britain, pigs will more likely fly. [] <2One for all and all for one>2 <2Social insects>2 Edited by H. R. Hermann, <1Academic, 4 volumes>1 Mark Collins SOCIAL INSECTS are broadly divided into the presocial insects, in which the parents take care of their young, and the eusocial insects, in which the same applies, but the young grow up to take care of their parents and the next generation. Why have they attracted so much research? The eusocial insects are confined to two orders, the Isoptera (termites) and the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants). Without them, many of the ecological processes upon which we and other organisms knowingly or unknowingly depend, would soon grind to a halt. The termites, nature's industrial cleaners, digest, process and recycle the waste material of plant growth in the tropics and subtropics. Helped by a battery of mutualistic proto- zoa, bacteria and fungi, they have mastered the nutritional and energetic problems of surviving in some of the poorest and most indigestible foodstuffs, from dead logs to soil humus. The social Hymenoptera are more varied. The honey bees are vital pollinators of crops and wild flowers. The ants are vora- cious predators like the drivers, devastating foresters like the leaf- cutters, or efficient stockmen like the aphid-tending species. They are present on every branch in a rainforest and every square metre of uncultivated soil. Often the social insects only begrudgingly surrender their natural environment to man's requirements, as is evident in the control programmes to combat termites and leaf-cutting ants. For these and many other reasons it is necessary to under- stand the evolution and be- haviour of social insects in both a pure and applied context. This four-volume, 1772-page text furthers this aim and is an extremely valuable report on the state of modern research. Origi- nally intended to be three volumes, it expanded to four, and there is still scope for more, particularly as the termites are treated rather briefly. In these 21 chapters, emphasis is given to the eusocial Hy- menoptera, with only one chap- ter devoted entirely to the Isoptera, one to the presocial Arachnida and one to the presocial insects. Apart from the chapters on the bumble bees and fungus ants, the ecology of social insects at the population, community or ecosystem level receives little attention. Certain of these aspects are currently well-covered in M. V. Brian's <1Production Biology of Ants and>1 <1Termites>1 (Cambridge UP, 1977). But these new volumes encour- age taxonomic discussions and keys, and fill important gaps. Volume one comprises eight chapters which intrcduce social insects and the factors that sepa- rate them from their less cooper- ative allies. These include caste systems, genetics and the defence of home territories. A useful discussion and key to the lavae of the social Hymenoptera families is included. The final chapter on social insect symbionts is devoted to obligate arthroped occupants of social insect nests; other symbionts, such as the digestive mutualistic symbionts central to the evolution of termites, receive no comment. There is probably enough new information since K. Krishna and F. M. Weesner's <1Biology of Termites>1 (Academic 1969-70) to have warranted further coverage. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see the range and numbers of insects that have co- evolved with the social insects; over 1200 species of myrmeco- philes have been collected from New World army ants alone! The prefuce of volume two claims rather hastily that a 1970 taxonomic review of the Isoptera remains comprehensive, yet a whole subfamily (the Amitermitinae) was sunk in 1972. The first chapter reviews the evolution of mandibular, salivary and frontal gland meth- ods of defence in termites; further discussion of the ecological results of these behav- ioural adaptations would have been valuable. This and the following chapter of Hymenop- tera defence are much-needed surveys of the recent, complex analyses of defensive chemicals and their origins. The volume is completed by descriptions of original work on the presocial insects, the macabre world of the presocial spiders, and a taxonomic review of the social Hymenoptera. The main part of volume three is taken up by a massive review following on from the symbiont chapter in volume two. A review of the honey bees is flanked by a fascinating description of the less well known bumble bees. Concern is expessed that agricul- tural methods and the wide- spread introductions of honey bees are reducing the popu- lations of bumble bees. The chapter on stingless bees is an important survey of their little- known biology. Volume four is dedicated to wasps and their allies, the ants. The chapter on wasps describes a recent renewal of interest follow- ing theoretical work. A concise and informative general consid- eration of ants and their foraging, nesting and domestic life precedes a detailed exam- ination of the villians of the insect world, the army ants, which ends with a welcome plea for protection of their habitats. The review of their horticultural but costly cousins, the fungus- growers, includes an artistic rendering of a khakai (sic) trouser leg spotted with the ants' excreta; in lieu of a taxonomic key perhaps. Bearing in mind the price of these volumes, they would be more practical had they been divided between subjects. Symbionts take up nearly 300 pages, but in two separate volumes. Hymenoptera larval taxonomy is in volume one, but the adults are considered in volume two. Nevertheless, these volumes have drawn together many little-known areas of social insect and spider biology in lucid accounts. Hymenopterists, tax- onomists, ethologists and phys- iologists are well served by this work, isopterists, ecologists and applied biologists less so, but it is well-indexed essential refer- ence for the current state of nowledge in insect sociality. [] <2Voyeur at the Boston DNA party>2 <2Genetic alchemy>2 by Sheldon Krimsky, <1MIT, pp 445. #17.50>1 Clifford Grobstein THE National Science Foundation in the US fun- ded a two- to three-year study "to examine the many areas of controversy over the scientific use, development, and applica- tion of gene-transplantation research". Sheldon Krimsky's book stems from this study, but in the light of the other books devoted to this same goal that have appeared over the past five years, it is worth considering what <1Genetic Alchemy>1 adds to previous efforts. First, as the latest shot at the goal, it is able to update the story--to about 1980. This is a year that brings the tale to a nat- ural turning point. By 1980, recombinant-DNA had de- clined as a burning public issue in the US and the character of remaining concern, now limited to the cognoscente, had shifted. What had been seen as a possi- ble threat to public health had transformed into a darling of venture capital with resulting controversy over the protection of academic virtue. Krimsky sketches the dynamics of this shift in public attitude, includ- ing the roles played by inter- ested parties and the changing social climate of the US in the late 1970s. Secondly, Krimsky, trained as a philosopher of science, also has a vantage-point as a participant-observer in the con- troversy. His interest was first aroused as an academic member of a community whose ances- tors organised the Boston Tea Party. The turbulence of the community in the middle 1970s focused not on tea but on DNA. Boston did not ignite the recombinant-DNA controversy but it vigorously seized the torch and raised it to national and worldwide visibility. Krimsky was well placed to observe key individuals and groups in action and he tells the local story vividly. Moreover, he had ready access to the archive established at Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Charles Weiner, exponent of oral history and interviewer of virtually every individual who had any relationship to the recombinant-DNA controversy. Krimsky's labours in the archives adds a voyeuristic titil- lation as people are quoted directly, sometimes saying things they might wish to forget. Thirdly, Krimsky served as a member of the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board. He and his six colleagues under- took an "extraordinary experi- ment in assessment of social risk" that had considerable impact on the national debate. He provides a first-hand account of the board's <1modus>1 <1operandi>1 as it developed recom- mendations that differed little from the promulgated National Institutes of Health guidelines but were turned into "the first DNA legislation in the United States". Subsequently, he also served a term on the NIH's Recombinant DNA Molecule Advisory Committee (RAC) during the period of revision of the original guidelines. He is thus able again to provide first- hand information, this time on the convoluted debates within that important body. Krimsky's participatory role, as well as his logical expository style, make the book interesting reading for those who joined in or followed the controversy. Not all, however, will share Richard P. Novick's view, provided on the jacket, that Krimsky "has produced the definitive social- historical analysis of this remarkable episode in the his- tory of science". This would be difficult to do if only because the story is far from fully played out. Moreover, Krimsky's per- spective as a participant very much colours his account as an observer. For example, his first chapter provides a thumbnail sketch of the social and political climate of the US in the 1960s. His intention is to establish con- tinuity between the issues of the Vietnam War and those of the recombinant-DNA controversy, especially a pervasive mood of doubt and suspicion about the social benefits of science and technology that were character- istic of the establishment thinking then. It does not dispute such con- tinuity to point out that the emergence of recombinant DNA was at least equally descendent from confluent broad and powerful scientific currents in genetics, cell biology, biophysics, biochemistry, etc. Although some of the people who became involved had been radicalised by the Vietnam War, many others did not share that experience. Rather they were energised by the fever of exciting, competitive and fast- moving discovery. The 1960s was the decade of Vietnam, but it was also a high point of the mid-century Golden Age of Science. The number of committed scientists was greater than that of com- mitted radicals. Moreover, the initial "whistle-blowers" came from both groups. Rather than to characterise <1Genetic Alchemy>1 as definitive I prefer to view it as a valuable "second generation" effort, con- siderably more scholarly than its predecessors but with more than a whiff of the critical and scep- tical attitudes of the disciplines that focus not so much on the substance of science as on its character as a social institution. In this sense, it makes a signifi- cant contribution toward a third-generation effort (perhaps still short of definitive) that will treat the recombinant-DNA controversy as a not-to-be- overlooked early warning of profound social change to come--as the achievements of this scientifically enormously productive century are built into new foundations for human society. [] <2The mysteries of calcium>2 Techniques in calcium research by M. V. Thomas, <1Academic, pp 214, #15>1 Debora MacKenzie OF ALL cell ingredients, one might guess that calcium was among the least important. While other ions abound in cytoplasm in their millimoles, liberal estimates of free Ca concentrations run around 0.1 micromolar, maximum. And that, as Dr M. Thomas cogently points out, is precisely why calcium is so important. It is also what makes a book like this so welcome. Cells work to keep calcium at vanishingly low internal concen- trations, in order to use it for signalling. Membranes must let in relatively few Ca ions to change local concentrations by a large percentage; such changes can thus connect stimuli to responses with great speed and sensitivity. Thomas's partial list of Ca- dependent events includes muscle contraction, neuro- transmission, photoreception, cell division, secretion, cilia, cyclic AMP, and important kinases. Calcium ions turn on the zygote at fertilisation, and a few years back were named the "final common pathway" in cell death. So one would like to know how much calcium there is in cells, and where it is going. The rub is that measuring nano- molar changes in an ion, with minimal cell disturbance, has been a physiologist's headache for decades. Thomas thoroughly reviews the cleverest current means of achieving this, especially with photoproteins, metallochromic indicators and calcium elec- trodes. Classic techniques, including radioisotope work, get rather short shrift: on the other hand, there is a welcome chapter on the physical chemistry of intracellular Ca. Thomas's eye for practicality is particularly useful, and ex- tends to addresses of electronics suppliers, and the price (high) of aequorin, a photoprotein. (He also says how to make your own, if you can get the jellyfish.) Prac- tical tips from many labs abound. There are directions here for making accurate buf- fers, and for building metal- lochrome spectrophotometers, the latter a chapter. One might have liked more about <1p>1H effects on Ca buffers, as the former are no longer "expected to be quite small" in some systems also involving calcium. The book is dense with tables and text, and one rather wishes that Thomas had illustrated a few of the more photogenic Ca- dependent events. But this is a quibble. The style is delightfully non-dense. The fact is that scientists in many areas--since calmodulin, even the molecular crowd--have started working with calcium, often without appreciating the experimental delicacy neces- sary, or available, to do so. This timely handbook should bring the tricks of the trade out of the realm of personal commu- nication, and on to the lab benches of calcium's ever- widening circle of admirers. [] <2A cartoonist's view of the future>2 <2Microphobia>2 by Martin Honeysett, <1Century. pp 112. #2.50>1 Jackie Wilson IN THE days when a pocket calcu- lator cost #100 and microcomputers were a thing of the future, I saw a niche for a book of cartoons of the genre that appeared in the computer rags. At last the book has arrived: Martin Honeysett has collected his cartoons in <1Microphobia,>1 a look at how to survive comput- ers and the technological revolu- tion. The cartoons are not just for computer scientists, though perhaps the expert will see the irony more clearly. Honeysett's cartoons reflect the mundane uses that an ill- educated public might put new technology to. Some of his car- toons show what hap- pens when computers go wrong, but the emphasis is on trivial tasks to which computers might be put in the house and office. My favourities are the nosy parker whose computer opens curtains whenever anyone passes her window, and computerised bath that finds the lost soap. Unless we do better than IT Year did in conveying what information technology is, who knows what uses the man on the Clapham omnibus will find for new technology. [] <2Holistic approaches to cancer and homes>2 THERE are signs within A gentle way with cancer, BBC2's Forty Minutes series on the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, which practises holistic medi- cine, of nerves twanging inside the BBC lest false hopes are aroused within watchers. On the face of it, these fears are groundless. Forty Minutes is following six patients during their two-day crash course in self-healing at the centre and during the nine months after ward. Two of the women who founded the centre in 1980, the charismatic Mrs Penny Brohn, a cancer sufferer herself who has spurned the path of orthodox medicine, and Mrs Pat Pilkington, and Dr Alec Forbes, the centre's medical adviser, made it quite clear in the first of the series of six, that the centre's work was to be seen as supple- mentary to orthodox treatment and not a substitute for it. And in the second programme (24 March), these qualifications were repeated several times. Despite these qualifications from those immediately con- cerned, a live studio discussion was interpolated after the second, with three practioners of the orthodox--Ian McColl, professor of surgery at Guy's, Professor T. J. McEl- waine, of the Royal Marsden, and Dr Walter Bodmer, director of research for the Imperial Cancer Fund--being ranged against, though they might demur about the word "against", Barbara Kidman, a broadcaster, journal- ist, cancer sufferer and author of a book on the alternative approach: and Dr Dick Rich- ards, a physician and author. It was a somewhat strained discussion on both sides, the Right, as it were, being careful not to be pejoratively dismissive and to stress the importance of improving the morale of cancer patients and of dis- cussion between sufferers and the world at large; the Left being equally cautious not to exaggerate claims for holistic medicine. One felt that the strain proved more inhibiting on the Right and McColl, could not resist the word "gobbledygook" in speaking of a remark by Dr Forbes in the second programme about some patients getting better. He and his colleagues were under- standably concerned about the lack of evidence to support the beneficial claims of holistic medicine, but Dr Richards, who thought much evidence could be produced if funds were avail- able, sagely remarked that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", a remark that lingered after a discussion that would have been better if longer and better left to the end of this excellent series. BBC's World About Us (20 March) explored in A highly desirable residence the domestic world of a young couple who bought a mouldering, 18th century cottage. They took it on, though, with- out vacant possession, the tenants being fleas, spiders, silver-fish, wood-lice, bats, rats, mice and indeed, the eco-system of what biologists would imme- diately recognise as a wet forest. What the programme did was to identify the creepy-crawlies and rodents, follow the emigration as modernisation proceeded, and the immigration as those who were able (an off- putting number) returned to enjoy central heating, fitted carpets and old food packets. This was a fascinating as well as instructional programme, written, narrated and prcduced by Barry Paine. I went to bed reflecting that though man may be an island, he is never quite alone. Mr Paine, I feel sure, will be a candidate for some award or other and I trust he will remember the couple whose bravery obviously far exceeded that called for in the normal course of duty. [] <2LETTERS>2 <2Confused cetaceans>2 I would like to offer some comments on your article "Why do whales come ashore" (17 March. p 716) in the light, or should I say sound, of our own work. A shoaling wave begins to "feel the bottom" when the water depth becomes equal to about one quarter of the wavelength and is thereafter capable of moving the seabed sediment grains. The acoustic energy produced by the ensuing particle-to particle impacts will be familiar to many divers, and is related to the size of grains in the sediment. The gently sloping sand beaches which the article associates with whale strandings would be composed of particles in the 1 to 2 mm size range, emitting noise in the 50 to i00 kHz frequency band. The deep water species mentioned in your article operate highly directional echo location systems in the 32 to 80 kHz range. Is it possible that these cetaceans and odontocetes, hailing from beyond the wave base and thus unfamiliar with the self-generated noise of moving sediment, become disoriented by these acoustic signals on the same wavelength as their own systems? Once shorewards of the breakers they could interpret the relative quiet as deeper water, and swim shorewards to their sad suicides. <1Jack Hardisty>1 <1University of Bristol>1 <2Point of error>2 It is a pity that <1,New Scientist>1 has give a new lease of life to the old story of 100 000 meteorites falling in a swarm in Poland (17 March, p 711). Thirty or 40 years ago someone wrote a letter to <1Nature>1 after tracking down its origin. Apparently, a Polish scientist analysed a meteorite and gave its composition, which including undetermined material added up to 100 000. That paper was abstracted by someone who did not know Polish. Among other things, this story illustrates the folly of giving up the convention of putting the decimal point a little above the line. <1N. W. Pirie,>1 <1Rothamsted Experimental Station,>1 <1Herts.>1 <2Captive audience>2 In his article on breakfast television, (Forum, 17 March, p 750) Barry Fox comments on the ratings battle between BBC1 and TV-AM. He does not mention that many modern television sets have electronic tuning, which, when the set is switched on, automatically selectes BBC1. How many people at breakfast time bother to do more than turn the set on, knowing that both channels are transmitting roughly similar programmes? <1G. M. C. Kent>1 <1Sawbridgeworth>1 <1Herts>1 <2Falklands fluke>2 Tam Dalyell's article on the Falklands (Forum, 3 March, p 605) caused great amusement here. During the Falklands conflict I heard reference to the dreaded "local parasite called liverfluke". I believe it was a Ministry of Defence ploy to upset the Argentinian military mind. I have since read of this liverfluke problem in histories of the war and it has now entered the archives of fact. Fiction, I'm afraid. Since 1975 my unit has examined thousands of sheep livers and faecal samples from throughout the islands, without seeing signs of liverfluke. <1John Ferguson>1 <1Falkland Islands Agricultural>1 <1Research & Development Centre,>1 <1Port Stanley>1 <2Science for girls>2 We are doing research on women in science, in conjunction with General Electric Company, for our masters' theses at the London School of Economics. We are attempting to investigate the influences that act on girls and women when they are making the crucial 'O' Level, 'A' Level and college and career choices, and which channel them away from research jobs in hard science. We are interested in approaching girls' schools in Greater London (be they private or state, comprehensive or single-sex) which have a science tradition. We would also like to make contact with schools that make special efforts to interest students in science either within the class room or in extracurricular activities. <1Lisa Kolkowicz>1 <1Sherry Hoover>1 <1Simon Fishwick>1 <1Danialle Douglas>1 <1Industrial Relations Department>1 <1LSE>1 <2Who will work?>2 Does Patrick Jenkin (The unemployed cannot blame automation, 24 February, p 526) really believe that microelectronics holds any hope for the unemployed? The small percentage of jobs he speaks of being created are all highly skilled, whereas the majority of the unemployed are untrained, unskilled, and have not the qualifications for further training. How can people get further training when the government is closing down existing training centres? They say that the trades taught there are no longer needed. If this is so where are the new training facilities? It is the fault of this government and past ones, which have allowed people to train in narrow, restrictive fields. Now, when the need for change arises, we are not in the position to do so. <1Colin Reid>1 <1Darlington>1 also like to make contact with schools that make special efforts to interest students in science either within the class room or or in extracurricular activities. <1Lisa Kolkowicz>1 <1Sherry Hoover>1 <1Simon Fishwick>1 <1Danielle Douglas>1 <1Industrial Relations Department>1 <1LSE>1 <2A farmer's lot>2 The calculations in "How conservation will bankrupt the conservationists" (This week, 10 February, p 357) miss out a very important cost to the farmer. When the farmer changes his land from pasture to arable, he has additional outlay to make in the form of farm machinery, equipment, and so on. The farmer meets one essential aspect of our needs. In doing so he has to maximise the output from his land as he is subject not only to man-made economic vagaries but also to climatic variations beyond his control. <1R. S. Tharmananthar>1 <1Loughborough, Leicester>1 <2Red menace>2 Your report on the Pentagon's analysis of Soviet military power (This week, 17 March, p 708) raises an interesting question. We now have the fact of Soviet military superiority, and President Reagan's theory that the aim of Soviet policy is expansion by military means. Surely it is time to ask what are the Russians waiting for? Logically they should have attacked by now, because any delay gives NATO a chance to catch up. Perhaps there is something wrong with American facts and assumptions? <1J. Powell>1 <1Manchester>1 [] <2ARIADNE>2 LETTERS poured in about the pepper- mint effect mentioned a week or two ago. Most of them were simply informa- tive, one or two pitying (everybody knows about the phenomenon and where have you been since 1605, when Francis Bacon discovered the flashes?) and a few offering the hospitality of the nearest dark cupboard. I have formally to decline such offers and shame on the correspondent who said that he had a pair of longjohns that flashed as he took them off and I was welcome to observe the spectacle at any time. This is old stuff to me. When nylon underwear first became popular I produced similar fireworks and had to earth myself to radiators when nobody was looking. However, to our muttons. According to most correspondents, the effect is caused by triboluminescence, the emission of light when crystals are mechanically stressed. But there are other kinds of stress that will produce the effect, too, such as drastic cool- ing or healing. You may even get loud cracking noises as the crystals cool or heat up, crackings caused by their fracture. The subject, when opened up, is complicated, involving peaks of light emission from nitrogen ad- or absorbed, other peaks from flavouring agents such as wintergreen and so on. You do not have to spend money on peppermints, either. That is information I am passing on having received no illu- minated address from manufacturers for helping peppermint sales to rise dramatically. Strike two sugar lumps together and you will get a flash or two. Using uranium salts is apt to be more expensive. One clearly libidinous writer gives thanks for my providing him with a far from platitudinous substitute for an invitation to come up and look at etchings. "I have some interesting triboluminescent phenomena that you might care to scrutinise" is a far more intriguing line. [] WHILE we are about it, I have been told of another effect that, for heaven's sake, could not have been stum- bled on by Francis Bacon. If you put a piece of Perspex under stress, in a vice perhaps, and then apply a drop of hydrochloric acid to the peak of the bend in a strip of it, you must stand back. No hurry, but, appar- ently, about half an hour afterwards there will be an explosion. I can think of reasons for this, but who am I to say? [] BORINGLY familiar it may be as a measure the rise in the price of cigarettes in the latest budget gives me open, honest pleasure, though its smallness causes me disappointment. I gather that the price of tobacco was not raised because the majority of pipe smokers are elderly or even old, a word that nowadays seems to make people unfasten their holsters. I have seen few women smoking a pipe. An increase in their number may occur. Talking to a tobacconist I found that he has some women customers and a range of smaller pipes for them to choose from. They are not, as I had some apprehension, gold striped, or jewelled, (the pipes, I mean). Hearing the prices charged for a feminine briar, I think that the women pipe smokers must be both. [] I AM a fan and an observer of dogs and before the avalanche descends on me I must shout that, like Chris Joyce, our US Editor, I am well aware of the case against dogs but also know that the relationship is to human advantage rather than the other way round. Every dog is an actor, inclined towards the comedy side but capable of a performance that would not shame a trage- dian of the stature of Edmund Kean. I am on friendly terms with a dog who is intoxi- cated with the pleasure of travelling in motor cars. The other day I watched this character, uncertain whether or not he would be taken, drop instantly into an amazing role. With the minimum of props and the only gesture being a raised paw, he asked for the money for a cup of coffee, guv, sported a patch over one eye concealing a wound sustained in the service of his country, at the same time dragging a wooden leg fitted during the retreat from Moscow while maintaining that he had a bitch and five pups to support and did not know where his next meal was coming from. He was given an immediate Critics' Award and a seat at the back. A pointless research project which I sometimes toy with concerning dogs is rpm, which is not rev/min but Rapid Paw Movement. Trained dog observers tell me that when this happens it is equivalent to rapid eye movement in human beings and the animal is dreaming. Is it true? Is there any similarity between electrical signals in the human brain when dreaming is going on and those in a dog's? And if there is, so what is a good question. On the other hand I am prepared to get on my hands and knees and see if there is any rem in dogs. [] IF YOU want to tell the time, don't buy a clock from Kovacs in Madison Avenue, New York. I am doing the firm no harm by tipping you off like this because Kovacs recommends you to buy a clock from them that will not simply tell you the time. The clock has an alias----Time Capsule"--and. says Kovacs proudly in its advertisement, it "may be the world's most difficult-to-read clock". After that claim it is good to know that it has a --pecision quartz movement" that rotates the hour, minute and second discs. There is nothing like having ignor- ance with the maximum of precision. Perhaps there is a new cavalier trend in American advertising. In small print, the advertisement asks for 50 cents for a clock ordering kit. Kovacs finishes off by saying, --So what if you can't tell the time. It's beau- tiful". I can imagine a lot of beautiful things that, among their functions, will not tell me the time. [] MANY hi-fi systems have "noise- reduction" systems which, by making loud sounds louder and soft sounds softer, expand the clarity and contrast of sound reproduced. Daedalus would like to do the same thing for human senses, and DREADCO chemists are now at work on his "contrast-exalting spectacles" or "Cexspex" (Regd.) make of a cunning tinted glass. The secret lies in the coloured molecules of the tint. Any molecule is "coloured" only in certain directions-- those from which a photon of light can couple with the appropriate molecular dipole. Furthermore, while coloured guest- molecules in a glassy matrix are generally static, the energy from a photon of light can set them spinning. They then come to rest in some new orientation. So, says Daedalus. imagine a Cexspex lens exposed to a bright directional beam of light. The tint-molecules will absorb its photons, and will repeatedly be set spin- ning. Those which happen to come to rest in a non-absorbing direction will absorb no more photons, and will thereafter stay put. Those which can still absorb will be set spinning again. So in a short while, all the molecules will have been spun into non-absorbing orientations. The glass will have been --bleached" to light from the bright direc- tion. However, the new orientations of the molecules will be even more absorbing to the --darker" directions of the scene, for which the glass will now be even more strongly tinted. The bright gets brighter and the dark gets darker: contrast is enhanced. Wherever the wearer looks, this molecularly-rapid process will instantly sharpen up his vision. Cexspex will appeal to watch-makers, surgeons and microscopists. They will also be ideal in fog, twilight and dull weather, enhancing vague details and extending the range of visibility. They will act as "anti-sunglasses", giving tropical clarity to our gloomy climate. In bright and sunny conditions, they will give an unearthly psychedelic punch and dazzle to the scene, with great aesthetic impact. []