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Princeton in the News
October 2 to 19, 1998 | Feedback
AP Online
Copyright 1998 Associated Press
October 19, 1998HEADLINE: Obituaries in the News
Arthur I. Bloomfield
BETHESDA, Md. -- Arthur I. Bloomfield, an author, educator and specialist in international trade and finance, died Oct. 6 of degenerative neurological disease. He was 84.
Bloomfield wrote many books on economics, including ''Capital Imports and the U.S. Balance of Payments,'' ''Monetary Policy Under the International Gold Standards, 1830-1914'' and ''Essays in the History of International Trade Theory.''
From 1949 to 1950, while at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he served as financial adviser to the Bank of Korea, helping create the foundation of the country's central bank. He later served as financial adviser to the Korean Ministry of Finance and the United Nations Reconstruction Agency.
In 1958, Bloomfield left his position as senior economist and consultant at the Fed to become a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He retired in 1985 and also was a visiting professor at colleges including Columbia University, Princeton University and the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Survivors include his wife, Dorothy; a sister, and a stepson.
Astronomy
Copyright 1998 Kalmbach Publishing Company
November, 1998HEADLINE: Souped-up supernova: hypernovae may spark gamma-ray bursts.
Gamma-ray bursts have left astronomers scratching their heads ever since they were discovered by U.S. military satellites in the late 1960s. Part of the mystery was solved last year when astronomers found that these bursts emanate from galaxies billions of light-years away. But what exactly triggers these explosions, which can release 1,000 times more radiation than supernovae? A gamma-ray burst and a supernova recently flared from the same patch of sky, strongly suggesting that at least some gamma-ray bursts are triggered by stellar explosions. "This could be the missing link between supernovae and gamma-ray bursts" says astrophysicist Stan Woosley of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
On April 25, two satellites, BeppoSAX and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, detected the gamma-ray burst in the southern constellation Telescopium. On May 2, Dutch astronomers spotted Supernova 1998bw flaring in a spiral arm of a galaxy 120 million light-years away, in the same area as the April 25 burst. "The probability of a chance coincidence between the gamma-ray burst and Supernova 1998bw is well below one in ten thousand," says Princeton University astronomer Bohdan Paczynski.
Supernova 1998bw is perhaps the most peculiar supernova ever seen. Astronomers were startled by radio observations showing material racing outward at nearly the speed of light, suggesting an explosion much more powerful than most supernovae.
Perhaps this event was a "hypernova"-- a term Paczynski coined in 1997 to describe stellar explosions 100 times more powerful than supernovae. While nobody knows exactly how a hypernova would work, Woosley has published a theoretical model in which a massive, rapidly rotating star collapses at the end of its life to form a black hole. The black hole voraciously accretes matter from a surrounding disk, powering twin, high-speed jets that slam into surrounding interstellar gas and generate a gamma-ray burst. ...
Astronomy
Copyright 1998 Kalmbach Publishing Company
November, 1998HEADLINE: Exploding stars tell all: distant supernovae hint that the universe will expand forever - and at an ever increasing rate; includes related article
BYLINE: Irion, Robert
Distant supernovae hint that the universe will expand forever -- and at an ever increasing rate.
For sheer explosive spectacle, few events rival supernovae. These titanic bursts of light pierce the cosmos, blazing so brightly that telescopes halfway across the universe can detect them. Now, two teams of astronomers are using these beacons in a most surprising fashion: as probes of how the expansion of the universe has changed.
Their preliminary answers, reported early this year, should delight the existentialists among us. It appears there's not enough mass in the universe to prevent it from expanding forever into a cold, bleak future -- indeed, not even close. Further, evidence is mounting that a "cosmological constant" is at work, accelerating the growth of the universe via a repulsion of space so bizarre that Albert Einstein derided its appearance in his equations as his greatest blunder. This effect may inflate the very fabric of space at an ever increasing rate.
Saul Perlmutter talks about his endeavor with supernova-caliber energy, darting across an office that overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge miles to the west. The project, he says, is a curious hybrid of classical astronomy and modern physics. Its goal -- to ascertain the curvature of space -- recalls Edwin Hubble's pioneering work in the 1930s. However, the research smacks of particle physics: large collaborations (more than 20 scientists on each team), a reliance on automated analysis, and an approach that discards almost all the collected data to expose hidden events. It's no accident that many in Perlmutter's group were trained as physicists -- and it helps explain why it took the better part of a decade to prove the concept.
But by now, Perlmutter and his competitors -- a consortium headed by astronomer Brian Schmidt of the Mt. Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatory in Australia -- have done just that. "I'm deeply impressed," says cosmologist P. J. E. Peebles of Princeton University. "It's a great triumph, and Saul deserves a lot of credit for pushing it forward." Nonetheless, Peebles thinks the rivalry has led to hasty public notices. "I depreciate this announcement that we've discovered how the world will end," he says. "I don't think we know. And it's a little embarrassing at this stage to say that we do." ...
Ruth Daly of Princeton University uses yet another technique: radio galaxies that emit pairs of "hot spots" at the ends of violent jets of matter. The predictable separations between those hot spots allow Daly determine their distances from Earth. Then, she deduces the overall curvature of the universe in a way similar to the supernova method. To date, the results agree.
The concurrence among these diverse approaches makes astronomers confident that their work will hold up. It's becoming quite clear," says Daly, "that the universe will expand forever." ...
Business Week
Copyright 1998 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
October 19, 1998HEADLINE: TECHNICIANS TAKE CENTER STAGE
BYLINE: By Suzanne Woolley in New YorkHIGHLIGHT: As investors look for answers, tech analysis grabs attention
Ralph J. Acampora is a man with a mission. As Prudential Securities' chief technical analyst and someone who has spent more than 30 years poring over charts to spot trends in the movement of stock prices, Acampora is a vocal champion of a field that, over the years, has been scoffed at by academics who disagree with its basic tenet -- that studying past patterns of trading volume and price reveals supply and demand trends that can be regularly exploited. In any case, for much of the 1990s, solid fundamentals such as declining inflation and lower interest rates were all the explanation needed for the stock market's rip-snorting run up the charts, and fundamental analysts held sway. ...
Many academics maintain that technical analysis is of little use. Burton G. Malkiel is an economist at Princeton University and author of the influential book A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The random-walk theory posits that past prices aren't useful in forecasting future price moves. Malkiel says he understands why techies are in the news: ''It's only natural at times like this that you search for ways you might have avoided the unpleasantness,'' he says. ''I agree, the market is not a perfect random walk. But whatever regularities there are are very small and very undependable from period to period.'' ...
The Washington Post
Copyright 1998 The Washington Post
October 19, 1998HEADLINE: SCIENCE NOTEBOOK
CLIMATOLOGY: Plants Are Suspect in 'Missing' Carbon Remember that fabled "giant sucking sound" over North America? If a new climate study is correct, it may have been the collective gasp of plants drinking in the smoggy excesses of modern civilization.
In a provocative new study, a team of U.S. atmospheric scientists conclude that American forests and crops are remarkably efficient at soaking up carbon dioxide spewed by factories, cities and automobiles. In the Oct. 16 Science, the researchers say plants are absorbing twice as much pollution each year as has been believed, taking in the carbon equivalent of all fossil-fuel emissions in the United States and Canada.
The finding could help settle one of the great mysteries of global climate science, the fate of millions of tons of "missing" carbon from smokestacks and tailpipes. While levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide are steadily building in the atmosphere, about half the world's emissions are disappearing into vaguely understood "sinks."
Much of the missing carbon is absorbed by the ocean and some is absorbed by plants, although the exact amount is the subject of intense debate. If the new findings turn out to be correct, the pressure on industrialized nations to reduce fuel emissions could drop significantly.
But the new study, by members of a Princeton University-based consortium, has led to new mysteries and controversies. For one thing, its conclusions about the size of the North American "sink" are sharply at odds with earlier research that suggests a much smaller role for plants.
The Buffalo News
Copyright 1998 The Buffalo News
October 18, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: WITNESS LIST IS A WHO'S WHO OF COMPUTER INDUSTRY
BYLINE: Associated PressPeople who will testify in the government's antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.
For the government:Edward Felten, assistant computer professor at Princeton University.
The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
October 18, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: Pay Was Up in 'Gilded' Year For University Leaders
BYLINE: By KAREN W. ARENSON
University presidents still do not come close to basketball players or venture capitalists in earnings, but a growing number have compensation packages in the half-million-dollar range once thought of as the preserve of corporate executives.
Three private university presidents -- at Rockefeller University, Vanderbilt and the University of Pennsylvania -- received pay and benefit packages greater than $500,000 in the 1996-97 school year, according to a study by The Chronicle of Higher Education in this week's issue.
Ten more private universities, including four in the New York area -- Columbia, New York University, Yale and Hofstra -- paid their presidents between $400,000 and $500,000, and 33 more paid between $300,000 and $400,000, The Chronicle said, making it the "most gilded" year since it started reporting executive pay six years ago.
Forty-six top executives at private universities were paid more than $300,000 in 1996-97, up from 38 the previous academic year.
Other universities in the New York region whose total presidential compensation exceeded $300,000 in 1996-97 included Long Island University and Dowling College on Long Island, Princeton University and Ithaca College. ...
The News Tribune
Copyright 1998 The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA)
October 18, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: THE CURIOUS PSYCHIC: THINK TANK'S RIGHT-LOBE RESEARCH POINTS TO A DIFFERENT PERCEPTION OF REALITY
BYLINE: Jacquie Witherrite and Shirlee Teabo
Could our minds actually affect reality? Melvin Morse, pediatrician, author, Tacoman and leading expert on near-death experience, challenges us to think it just might.
Q: In our previous column you told us that on the day Mark McGwire broke the single-season home run record by hitting the 62nd home run, the power pick of the St. Louis lottery was number 062. Are you saying there is a connection? Can human beings really affect pingpong balls?
A: Guess what, Jacquie: They can. Experiments at Princeton University have confirmed it. They set up a wall with pegs and a cascade of ping-pong balls coming over the wall. They found that by holding a mental picture, everyday people could influence the directions in which the balls would fall. ...
The Buffalo News
Copyright 1998 The Buffalo News
October 17, 1998, SaturdayHEADLINE: SEPTEMBER WAS WARMEST RECORDED IN WORLD
This September was the warmest ever recorded both globally and in the 48 contiguous United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported this week.
Worldwide, the month's average temperature was just a shade under 60 degrees, more than a degree above the average since 1980. The mark continued a string of global record-breaking temperatures that started with the very strong El Nino last year. ...
In related research, government and university scientists reported this week that the North American land mass is absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide -- the most common greenhouse gas -- from the atmosphere.
"The North American land surface appears to be absorbing possibly as much as between 1 billion and 2 billion tons of carbon annually, or a sizable fraction of global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning," said Pieter Tans of NOAA's Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, who was joined by Princeton University and Columbia University scientists in the work.
The study, published in the journal Science, indicates a possible cause of North America's role as a "heat sink" early this decade is the regrowth of carbon dioxide-absorbing plants and vegetation on abandoned farmland and logged-over forest lands. ...
The National Journal
Copyright 1998 The National Journal, Inc.
October 17, 1998HEADLINE: Lead On--Please!
BYLINE: Bruce StokesHIGHLIGHT:
Many analysts (and other worriers) wonder why, after nearly a year and a half of world economic turmoil, the administration has yet to draft a coherent battle plan.
Earlier this month, during the big belly-rub that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
put on every year in Washington, President Clinton tried to dramatize the urgency of the moment. In a sharp departure from past practice, he attended a meeting of the G-22 finance ministers--the (sometimes) wise men and women in gray who represent major industrial and emerging market nations.
Clinton's unprecedented drop-by reflected the White House's mounting concern about the globe's spreading financial crisis. ...
Rapid movements of capital into and then out of emerging markets are widely blamed for aggravating, if not causing, the current crisis. Malaysia has imposed capital controls to slow such speculative shifts. ''There was an amazingly broad consensus (at the IMF/World Bank meetings) that some controls may be necessary,'' said Peter B. Kenen, a Princeton University international finance professor who worked with Treasury on the G-22 meeting. But Chile's widely heralded controls on capital look better from afar. Such curbs crippled equity markets, hurting small and medium-sized Chilean companies that could not go abroad to raise cash. ''Unfortunately,'' said the Zurich Group's Hale, ''the bankruptcy of (the U.S. hedge fund) Long-Term Capital Management has greatly weakened the moral position of the U.S. government in challenging the movement toward capital controls.'' ...
The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
October 17, 1998, SaturdayHEADLINE: Political Memo; In About-Face, Democrats Give Clinton Praise
BYLINE: By JAMES BENNETDATELINE: WASHINGTON, Oct. 16
Here's a quiz to see if you are keeping up with the head-snapping political swerves in Washington.
Was the following said by a Congressman in (a) praise or (b) condemnation of President Clinton? "Now let me tell you, often in our lives, in our personal lives, we have choices: do you want instant gratification, or do you want to do the responsible thing for yourself and your family and others, for the future?"
If you answered (b), you are hopelessly mired in the past of, oh, two or three days ago, when folks were still talking about a scandal involving a certain former intern. Hard to remember back that far, actually.
The words were said by Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the minority leader -- who has been a sharp critic of Mr. Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky matter -- to laud the President's rejection of Republican tax-cut proposals. Mr. Gephardt had crowded with other Democrats around Mr. Clinton in the Rose Garden this morning to drench him with praise, like so many jubilant football players with a tank of Gatorade. ...
Fred Greenstein, a historian at Princeton University, said Mr. Clinton had reason for confidence, having done better than anyone could have expected since Aug. 17, when he acknowledged an affair with Ms. Lewinsky.
Mr. Greenstein said the President had rallied once-panicked Democrats behind him by playing the budget game skillfully and maintaining his high public approval ratings. The reversal of political fortune, he said, was "full of anomalies and paradoxes -- like who would imagine a President would be strengthened by being the third person to have impeachment hearings?" ...
New Scientist
Copyright 1998 New Scientist IPC Magazines Ltd
October 17, 1998HEADLINE: Fusion catches a cold
BYLINE: Charles Seife and Peter HadfieldHIGHLIGHT: Attempts to tap into the Sun's power source will flounder without big bucks
SOLVING the world's energy problems by harnessing the reactions that drive the Sun seems a more distant dream than ever. Lack of funds means American scientists working on the next big nuclear fusion project, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), are now packing their bags and returning home from the project's design base in Germany.
Given the looming global economic recession, there seems little hope that the remaining partners will pick up the slack left by the American withdrawal. "Everybody believes that ITER as developed is dead in the water," says Ronald Parker, one of the deputy directors for the design phase of the project, who is now returning to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ITER was born from the spirit of detente that flourished at the end of the Cold War. Conceived at a 1985 Soviet-American summit in Geneva, the project soon grew to include Japan and Europe. Its goal was to create a gigantic magnetic doughnut - a tokamak - that would confine hot hydrogen isotopes and induce their nuclei to fuse. The reactor was the natural successor of the world's leading fusion projects, the Joint European Torus in Culham, Oxfordshire, and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at Princeton University in New Jersey. ITER should have paved the way for commercial reactors generating power from a clean and abundant fuel. ...
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
Copyright 1998 Sentinel Communications Co.
October 17, 1998 SaturdayHEADLINE: THE JOURNEY: SEEKING IS GIVING WAY TO DOING MORE AMERICANS ARE WILLING TO
BYLINE: By Deborah Kovach Caldwell Dallas Morning News
Barbara Sanders found God in her darkened bathroom.
When her children were small more than 20 years ago, she heard an inner voice telling her she needed a relationship with the divine. So every day for two weeks, while the children napped, she closed herself in her bathroom and prayed. One day she saw an inner light, and she broke down crying.
"I knew I'd met the Lord," Sanders said.
Today, with her four children grown, she still rises at 5 a.m. for an hour of prayer and Scripture reading. She also teaches other people how to practice spirituality at the Carmel Center, a Catholic-run retreat center in southwest Dallas.
Sanders is on the leading edge of Americans' latest spiritual awakening, says leading religion sociologist Robert Wuthnow. People may finally be ready to stop seeking and begin centering - through spiritual practice of intensive prayer and meditation, Scripture study and worship.
And spiritual practice may represent a middle path through the two approaches to spirituality that have held sway for 50 years but are no longer adequate, he says. For church and synagogue members, prayer and meditation can help them develop spiritual lives separate from the confines of congregational life; for lonely seekers, spiritual practice can connect them to ancient traditions.
"We live in a world of fads and crazes that change from week to week, so we are taught to shop and dabble and search for instant gratification," says Wuthnow, a Princeton University professor and author of After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s (University of California Press), arriving in bookstores this month.
"But spiritual practice takes on an authority over and above one's feelings and desires," he says. "The individual believes, 'I should do this. I have to follow this practice in order to get better at it."' ...
NOTE: This story, which first appeared in The Dallas Morning News, was distributed nationally by the Associated Press.
AP Online
Copyright 1998 Associated Press
October 16, 1998; FridayHEADLINE: North America Soaking Up Carbon From Air
BYLINE: RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Somehow, North America seems to be soaking up a lot of the carbon scientists had expected to find in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide in the air has been increasing, but not as rapidly as expected by researchers studying the threat of global warming. So they have been trying to figure out where the excess was going.
A report in today's edition of the journal Science concludes that much of this missing carbon is being absorbed in North America possibly by regrowth over abandoned farms and previously logged forests.
The absorption could total between 1.2 billion and 2.2 billion tons annually, a ''substantial portion'' of the carbon being added to the atmosphere, according to the government and academic researchers.
Even before it was published, however, the paper was generating controversy. ...
Environmentalists worry that groups opposed to the 1997 Kyoto climate treaty will use the findings to argue that the United States does not need to reduce its emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. ...
Other co-authors of the paper were Jerry Mahlman, Song-Miao Fan, Emanuel Gloor, Stephen Pacala and Jorge Sarmiento of Princeton University and Taro Takahaski of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Copyright 1998 Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.
October 16, 1998 FridayHEADLINE: OPRAH'S ODYSSEY;
'BELOVED' BECAME STORY SHE ACHED TO TELL ON FILM
BYLINE: By Jaye Beeler, The Arizona Republic
When Oprah Winfrey finished reading Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, she felt an inexplicable pain - the kind of hurt that won't let you be.
"I was haunted by it," said Winfrey, 44, on the phone from the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C., between publicity appearances for the film.
"I was haunted, moved, disturbed, stunned and overwhelmed. I needed someone to help me articulate my feelings, so I called Toni Morrison. I didn't know her, but I called her up and asked her if I could buy the rights and do it as a film.
"She said, 'Girl, you cain't get this on no screen, girl,' " said Winfrey, mimicking an old Southern Black woman. " 'Oh, I believe I can, (I said). You can even help me write it.' " ...
The naysayers, including Morrison, believed the book was too complicated, too edgy, too heavy to translate on screen. That is partly because of the way Morrison puts words together. Her language is forcefully illustrative and startlingly original, providing a mental storyboard that stays with the reader forever. A former slave's back, horribly scarred by a vicious whipping, is described as a "chokecherry tree" and is detailed down to the limbs, leaf and blossoms; a mother calls her child her "best thing"; a months-old baby is never mentioned by name, only as the "crawling already?" baby; the overseer is known as "schoolteacher" because of the cruel lessons he teaches. ...
Morrison, a Princeton University professor, received the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Beloved, which is based on the true story of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who chose an anguishing path rather than see her child taken back to the plantation.
The Associated Press
October 16, 1998, Friday
HEADLINE: Brandeis celebrates its 50th anniversaryBYLINE: ROBIN ESTRIN, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: WALTHAM, Mass.
It wasn't easy being a Jewish high school student with college aspirations in the first half of this century. Many of the country's top universities had quotas - only so many Jews allowed.
Although the restrictions began to relax after World War I, many young Jews found they were locked out of the predominantly Christian world of higher education.
Then, in the mid-1940s - with the horrors of the Holocaust all too fresh in their minds - some prominent Jewish leaders had an idea: If Catholics and Protestants and Baptists can start their own colleges, why not the Jews?
Fifty years later, Brandeis University is celebrating its half-century birthday, kicking off a series of celebratory events this weekend.
While there are other Jewish universities - Yeshiva in New York City, to name one - Brandeis was conceived as a nonsectarian institution, where religion was neither a requirement for admission nor a mandate for study. About 60 percent of today's 4,200 undergraduate and graduate students are Jewish. ...
The biggest hurdle for the future? As with many universities, it's money.
The school's endowment - at least before the stock market's most recent wild ride - was around $308 million.
Princeton University is not much larger than Brandeis - the New Jersey school has 4,600 undergraduates compared to Brandeis' 3,000. But Princeton has an endowment of about $5.4 billion.Of course, Princeton is also about 200 years older than Brandeis.
"If you give me another 300 years," Reinharz said, "I assure you we'll have $6 billion."
City News Service
COPYRIGHT 1998 City News Service, Inc.
October 16, 1998, FridayHEADLINE: Queen Noor
BYLINE: By DAVE MELENDI
DATELINE: LOS ANGELESTourism could promote world peace, Jordan's Queen Noor told conferees today at the 68th annual American Society of Travel Agents' ''World Travel Congress.''
''Global tourism has an enormous potential to foster understanding and tolerance worldwide,'' the American-born queen said. ''Tourism can reunite families and cultures alienated by conflict, fear and ignorance.
''Tourism can forge cooperation in those regions of the world that have been ravaged by conflict for many decades,'' she said. ''Tourism can generate regional integration and material progress in areas that have suffered economic stagnation and wasteful militarism.''
The 47-year-old queen also discussed rural development in Jordan, her country's two-year campaign to promote tourism, focusing on 50 biblical sites, and the area's religious significance in history. ...
Queen Noor, who earned a bachelor's degree in architecture and urban planning from Princeton University in 1974, is no stranger to tourism issues. ...
The Columbus Dispatch
Copyright 1998 The Columbus Dispatch
October 16, 1998, FridayHEADLINE: DEATHS & FUNERALS
SPILLMAN Robert L. Spillman, age 80, of Columbus, Ohio, suddenly Sunday, October 11, 1998 in Sebring, Florida. He was the founder of R. L. Spillman Co. He graduated from the Columbus Academy in 1936, and Princeton Univ. in 1941. He is survived by wife, Dorothy; children, Muriel Spillman of Calif., Daniel (Connie) of Carroll, Theodore (Kaye) of South Amherst, Oh., Amy (Mark) Whitney of Athens, Brian (Paula) of Columbus; grandchildren, Duncan Spillman, Amanda Trees, Ted and Cindy Spillman, Emily and Nicholas Whitney, Andrew, Alexis, and Katherine Spillman. Friends may visit Friday 4-7 p.m. at the DWAYNE R. SPENCE FUNERAL HOME, 650 W. Waterloo St., Canal Winchester, where funeral service will be held 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Interment Betzer Cemetery. Friends may contribute to charity of choice in his memory.
THE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Copyright 1998 Star-Telegram Newspaper, Inc.
October 16, 1998, FridayHEADLINE: Similar brand; Spanish Gourd honoree is likened to the namesake of Cowboy Days in demeanor and devotions.
BYLINE: Art Chapman, Star-Telegram Writer
ALBANY - Bob Green is the physical antithesis of Watt Matthews, the legendary rancher who was a one-man ambassador for this small limestone town in Shackelford County.
Matthews, who died last year and is buried at his beloved Lambshead Ranch, was a small man, elfin in stature. Green is tall and robust, barrel-chested.
But their demeanor is quite the same - gentle, nonthreatening and resolute.
It is because of their likenesses that Green is this year's recipient of the Spanish Gourd Award, given annually at the Watt Matthews Cowboy Days. Green is the second recipient. The inaugural award went to John Justin Jr. of Fort Worth. ...
Matthews was away from the Lambshead only while attending Princeton University; Green left his family's ranch long enough to go to high school and one year of college at New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, N.M. ...
M2 PRESSWIRE
Copyright 1998 M2 Communications Ltd.
October 16, 1998HEADLINE: NOAA
North American land mass soaking up carbon dioxideA study by government and university scientists indicates that the land mass in North America is absorbing a large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. During the past decade, evidence had already suggested the existence of a large land "sink " of atmospheric carbon dioxide at temperate latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is closely associated with global warming. The term "sink" refers to areas where greenhouse gases are absorbed either by land or ocean processes.
In an article appearing in the Oct. 16 issue of Science magazine, scientists from the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton University, and Columbia University say that they have now, tentatively, identified that "sink" as being mostly North America, at least during the period studied, from 1988-1992.
Pieter Tans, an atmospheric chemist at NOAA's Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., and a co-author of the paper, says that "the North American land surface appears to be absorbing possibly as much as between one and two billion tons of carbon annually, or a sizeable fraction of global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning." ...
USA TODAY
Copyright 1998 Gannett Company, Inc.
October 16, 1998, FridayHEADLINE: Tech industry's direction hangs in balance: U.S. vs. Microsoft
Government witnesses .
Edward Felten
Computer science professor, Princeton University
What he'll say: The Microsoft browser can be removed from Windows without harming the operating system.
The Charleston Gazette
Copyright 1998 Charleston Newspapers
October 15, 1998, ThursdaySECTION: Editorial
HEADLINE: 'Record...will endure' Clifford left his mark on American policiesBYLINE: Ken Hechler
Exactly 50 years ago, President Harry S. Truman scored the greatest upset in political history in winning the 1948 presidential election.
The architect of that amazing victory was unquestionably Clark M. Clifford, who died last weekend at age 91.
Clifford's formal title in the Truman White House was "special counsel," but his duties and influence extended far beyond that. He was chief speechwriter, top political strategist, mastermind of countless initiatives in foreign policy and defense, and a strong spokesman for Truman's domestic policy known as the Fair Deal.
I owe a great personal debt to Clifford for recruiting me to work at the White House. While teaching at Princeton University in 1948, I told my classes that Clifford was in the middle of virtually every great decision articulated by President Truman. Soon one of my students, a tall football player named Clifford Kurrus, came up after class to tell me: "You've been talking about my uncle, and I was named after him. Would you like to meet him?"
When we organized a group of Princetonians to visit the White House, I got a letter from Clifford's top assistant, George M. Elsey, a Princeton graduate himself, inviting us to his office. Elsey later made a special trip to address my Princeton class and tell the inside story of what went on behind the scenes in Truman's remarkable 1948 campaign. Elsey worked out details for my position as "special assistant" at the White House, and I worked directly for Elsey. ...
The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times
Company October 15, 1998, ThursdayHEADLINE: Economic Scene
Economists raise questions about educational priorities.BYLINE: By Michael M. Weinstein
President Clinton has fought hard this week, in the final stage of budget negotiations, to protect his proposal to spend $1 billion as the first step in hiring 100,000 additional teachers to reduce class size in early grades. Mr. Clinton linked his proposal to the grand ambition of preparing the economy for the 21st century.
But critics of the plan point to research that casts doubt on the Administration's predictions of its likely impact. According to this line of argument, this is not the first time that the Administration has inflated the value of training and education initiatives. If the critics are right, the Administration's lobbying could channel money into the wrong places, starving quiet programs that might work better.
Professor Alan Krueger of Princeton University, who served as chief economist at the Labor Department under Mr. Clinton, provides some of the research results that the Administration uses to bolster its case for smaller class size. He cites Tennessee, the only state to run a carefully controlled experiment, begun in 1986, to reduce class size in early grades. Mr. Krueger estimates that the program lifted scores on standardized tests by about 5 percentile points -- students who would score better than 50 percent of their peers if placed in classes of 22 would score better than 55 percent if placed in classes of 15.
But Mr. Krueger says the Tennessee results hardly settle the issue. He notes the higher test scores occurred by the end of the first year. Are smaller classes useless thereafter? Would class size of 18 -- the President's plan -- work as well? ...
Newsday
Copyright 1998 Newsday, Inc. (New York, NY)
October 15, 1998, ThursdayHEADLINE: FAMINE RESEARCH AWARDED A NOBEL / ECONOMIST CITED FOR 'ETHICAL WORK
BYLINE: COMBINED NEWS SERVICES
DATELINE: Stockholm
Stockholm - Economist Amartya Sen of India won the Nobel Economics Prize yesterday for his contribution to welfare economics, and in particular his research into the causes of famine and poverty.
Sen, 64, is the first Asian to win the coveted prize since it was inaugurated in 1969.
In its citation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Sen had made "several key contributions to the research on fundamental problems in welfare economics."
Sen said he was "very pleased" to receive the award, particularly because the subject for which he had been honored touched the lives of ordinary people. ...
Princeton University economics professor Kenneth Rogoff, who described Sen as a "great scholar and a philosopher," said that Sen's emphasis was on "issues of equality and fairness rather than productive efficiency."
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company: Abstracts
Information Bank Abstracts
October 15, 1998, ThursdayHEADLINE: PRACTICAL ETHICS
JOURNAL-CODE: WSJ
ABSTRACT:
Letters, including one from Peter Singer, respond to Naomi Schafer's Sept 25 commentary Professor Pleasure -- or Professor Death, which criticized Singer's advocacy of abortion rights, animal rights and right to die; Singer notes inaccurate article was accompanied by incorrect portrait (M)
The Washington Times
Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
October 15, 1998, Thursday
HEADLINE: Doctor succeeds in fertilizing egg with two mothers; Technique resembles Dolly's cloning
BYLINE: August Gribbin; THE WASHINGTON TIMESA physician's success in planting the genes from one woman's egg into the egg of another woman and creating an embryo with two mothers has created excitement among researchers and consternation among ethicists.
The technique was reported several days ago by Dr. Jamie Grifo of New York University. His team removed the nucleus from an unfertilized egg of a young woman and replaced it with the nucleus of an egg from a 44-year-old woman who is seeking to become pregnant. The composite egg was then fertilized in vitro and implanted in the older woman.
The procedure uses the basic technique employed in creating Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, but with major differences. In cloning, the transferred cells are adult, and male sperm isn't used to fertilize the eggs. ...
Dr. Lee Silver, a molecular biologist at Princeton University and acknowledged specialist in human cloning, agrees that the technique is "inappropriate" for humans before being tested in animals.
"The problem it cures is rare, and the whole reason for using the technique is to practice using nuclear transfer with the future intention of doing human cloning," Dr. Silver said. ...
Agence France Presse
Copyright 1998 Agence France Presse
October 14, 1998HEADLINE: Nobel Economics Prize goes to Sen of India
BYLINE: Allan KellyDATELINE: STOCKHOLM, Oct 14
Philosopher-economist Amartya Sen of India won the Nobel Economics Prize Wednesday for his contribution to welfare economics, and in particular his research into the causes of famine and poverty.
Sen, 64, is the first Asian to win the coveted prize since it was inaugurated in 1969.
In its citation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which adjudged the prize, said that Sen had made "several key contributions to the research on fundamental problems in welfare economics."
"His contributions range from axiomatic theory of social choice, over definitions of welfare and poverty indexes, to empirical studies of famine," it said.
Economists described Sen as a leftwing professor who nevertheless pursued an independent line, leading him, for example to his Nobel-winning work on famine. ...
Princeton University economics professor Kenneth Rogoff, who is visiting the London School of Economics, described Sen as a "great scholar and a philosopher" who richly deserved the "magnificent prize."Rogoff said that Sen's emphasis was on "issues of equality and fairness rather than productive efficiency." ...
Agence France Presse
Copyright 1998 Agence France Presse
October 14, 1998HEADLINE: Trouble-shooter Holbrooke wins second Balkans accord
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Oct 14US envoy Richard Holbrooke, the embodiment of muscular diplomacy, has now twice succeeded in brokering deals in the Balkans to defuse conflicts that had defied the efforts of other diplomats.
Holbrooke was back in the United States Wednesday after a second joust with Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade where in a week's hard bargaining he gained the Yugoslav president's agreement to halt his crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
The diplomatic coup comes just three years after his achievement in securing the Dayton agreement that ended the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
Nominated US ambassador to the United Nations last June -- though the appointment remains blocked by the Senate for the moment -- Holbrooke is widely viewed as one of the ablest negotiators on the international scene. ...
He was posted to Vietnam before being assigned to the White House in 1966 to work on Vietnam issues under President Lyndon Johnson. Throughout the 1970's he pursued diplomatic studies at Princeton University, and served as a Peace Corps director in Morocco. ...
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Copyright 1998 Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.
October 14, 1998 WednesdayBYLINE: Written and complied from staff and wire reports by Cathryn Creno.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WORKS, 2 TOP ACADEMICIANS SAYExamining grades, test scores, choice of major, graduation rates, careers and attitudes of 45,000 students at 28 of the most selective universities in the nation, two former Ivy League presidents have concluded that affirmative action works.
One of the most striking findings in a new book, The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, by William Bowen of Princeton University, an economist, and Derek
Bok of Harvard University, a political scientist, is how much an elite college education serves as a pathway to success for all races.
Blacks who graduate from elite colleges earn 70 percent to 85 percent more than do Black graduates generally.
Blacks and Whites report fairly substantial social interaction at college, which they say helped them relate to members of different racial groups later in life.
The Jupiter Courier
Copyright 1998 Stuart News Company (Jupiter, FL)
October 14, 1998, WednesdayHEADLINE: OBITUARIES
Robert BraederRobert R. Braeder, 71, of Jupiter, and formerly a longtime resident of Montclair, N.J., died Wednesday, Oct. 7 at Jupiter Medical Center.
He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was a graduate of Princeton University's class of 1948.
He was a board member of the Palm Beach Council of the Navy League.
Survivors include his wife, Janice of Jupiter; two daughters, Linda Boschen of Jupiter, and Karen Conniff of Old Lyme, Conn.; and six grandchildren.
A memorial service was Monday, Oct. 12 and another will be conducted in New Jersey at a later date.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Camper Fund, Princeton Blairstown Center, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544. ...
M2 PRESSWIRE
Copyright 1998 M2 Communications Ltd.
October 14, 1998HEADLINE: NASA
NASA 'software scalpel' helps doctors practice operationsA "software scalpel," combined with clear, accurate, three- dimensional (3-D) images of the human head, is helping doctors practice reconstructive surgery and visualize the outcome more accurately.
Using the new approach, a physician wearing 3-D glasses can see an image of a patient's head from all angles on a computer monitor, or on the surface of a large "immersive virtual reality work bench." Virtual reality is a computer-created environment that simulates real-life situations.
"To predict what the result will be in a real operation, the surgeon uses a computer mouse to mark the incision location and to ask the computer to 'cut' bone," said Muriel Ross of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. Ross is director of the Ames Center for Bioinformatics, which uses computer technology to improve medical practices. "The doctor can then remove the simulated piece of bone or can place it at a new angle or in a new position."
"Because some patients have severe injury to the head or diseases such as cancer, there are times when physicians must rebuild a person's head or face," Ross said. ...
"Eventually, we want to provide a virtual tool for surgeons to practice many sorts of surgery," said Aaron Lee, a student from Princeton University, who worked in Ross' lab to develop the Virtual Surgery Cutting Tool. ...
PR Newswire
Copyright 1998 PR Newswire Association, Inc.
October 14, 1998, WednesdayHEADLINE: Oracle Delivers the World's First 100% Browser-Based Environment for Building Data Driven Web Pages and Self Service Web Sites; Public Beta of Project WebDB Empowers 'The Rest of Us' Through Unparalleled Ease of Use
DATELINE: REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Oct. 14
Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) today announced the public beta of Project WebDB, the first tool to fully leverage Oracle 8i(TM), the world's first Internet database. Project WebDB 2.0 beta is available through Oracle(R) Technology Network ( http://technet.oracle.com ), the definitive source of technical information and software for Internet developers.
Project WebDB has two key components:
* A web viewer for your database: Project WebDB provides all the tools necessary to rapidly generate dynamic HTML forms, charts, reports and menus.
* A web site builder: Project WebDB provides all the tools and management services needed to create self-service web sites.
The shortage of technical skills outside of the corporate IT department has resulted in a massive application backlog. Lines of business today have few dedicated IT staff and often rely on part time developers to build and
maintain their web content. Project WebDB overcomes this skill shortage by delivering unparalleled ease of installation, ease of use and ease of deployment. ...
"Project WebDB gives our end users a sense of ownership of the site," said Rich Pickett, Director of Data Administration, Princeton University, "the self service capabilities of the site ensure that the very latest information is available at all times and minimizes the level of support we need to provide." ...
The Richmond Times Dispatch
Copyright 1998 The Richmond Times Dispatch
October 14, 1998, WednesdaySECTION: EDITORIAL
HEADLINE: ON THE ROPES, DEFENDERS OF QUOTAS FIGHT BACK WITH SELECTIVE DATABYLINE: Robert Holland
Affirmative action in higher education is on the ropes, but its defenders aren't throwing in the towel. They may be resorting to rope-a-dope tactics.
The blows against race-based admissions have been of the fast-and-furious sort usually ending in a TKO.
*There was the 1996 decision of the California Board of Regents to ban racial preferences in that state's universities. Wham!
*Then the Golden State's voters decisively backed that non-discriminatory stance by approving Proposition 209. Bam! (Next month, voters in Washington State may well approve their own initiative to put the kibosh on quotas.)
*In Texas, also in 1996, came the Hopwood case in which a federal appellate court banned the use of race as an admissions criterion at the University of Texas law school. Bif! ...
PERHAPS the defenders of affirmative action hope the attackers will punch themselves out and be vulnerable to a late-round haymaker. From the ropes they have begun counter-punching - delivering data of dubious objectivity but from impeccably pedigreed sources. Two of the upper crust of the higher-ed elite the former presidents of Princeton and Harvard, respectively, William Bowen and Derek Bok - fired off heavy rounds of statistics supposedly establishing that affirmative action had been instrumental in the successful careers of many young blacks.
Rushed to print by (surprise!) Princeton University Press, their book - The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions - got a big spread in The Chronicle of Higher Education and made a ripple in the daily press. But the study of 45,184 students who entered 28 selective colleges in the fall of 1976 and the fall of 1989 looks suspiciously like advocacy research. ...
WHAT The Shape of the River amounts to, irreverently note the editors of The New Criterion in their October issue, is an effort "to send in the liberal cavalry, so to speak, to rescue an experiment in social engineering that is increasingly under siege." (The New Criterion is edited by art critic Hilton Kramer, who is irreverent toward many elitist nostrums in the culture wars.) ...
The Baltimore Sun
Copyright 1998 The Baltimore Sun Company
October 13, 1998, TuesdayOBITUARIES
George E. Nugent, 66, taught music at Syracuse U.George E. Nugent, a Baltimore native who taught music for 22 years at Syracuse (N.Y.) University, died Oct. 4 of Parkinson's Disease at Nottingham Nursing Home near Syracuse. He was 66.
As a teen-ager, Mr. Nugent played the organ during church services near his Govans home for extra money, said his brother, Robert Nugent of Baltimore.
He graduated from Loyola College and studied at Peabody Conservatory of Music. In the mid-1960s, he attended Harvard and Princeton universities while earning a doctorate degree in music. ...
Business Wire
Copyright 1998 Business Wire, Inc.
October 13, 1998, TuesdayHEADLINE: Patent Issued to the University of Southern California for the Use of Organic Free Radicals in Organic Light Emitting Devices -- OLEDs --
DATELINE: BALA CYNWYD, Pa.
Universal Display Corp. is Exclusive Licensee of This Exciting New Invention
Universal Display Corp. (UDC) (NASDAQ:PANL), a developer of flat panel display technology, announced Tuesday that a patent for Electron Transporting and Light Emitting Layers Based On Organic Free Radicals, U.S. Patent Number 5,811,833, was issued to its research partner, the University of Southern California (USC). This is the sixth patent issued to UDC's research partners, USC and Princeton University, in the Organic Light Emitter Project, which began in 1994. UDC has the exclusive worldwide license on all technology developed in this project. More than 40 additional patents are pending in the U.S. and corresponding patents have been filed internationally. "The patent involves an entirely new method of injecting and conducting electrons in OLEDs by the use of an organic free radical, which is a molecule with unpaired electron density." Said Dr. Mark E. Thompson, Associate Professor of Chemistry at USC and member of the UDC Scientific Advisory Board. ...
The Christian Science Monitor
Copyright 1998 The Christian Science Publishing Society
October 13, 1998, TuesdayHEADLINE: A Case for Race-Sensitive College Admissions
BYLINE: Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorDATELINE: BOSTON
To Derek Bok and William Bowen, both former presidents of Ivy League colleges, the rationale for "race-sensitive" college admissions lies in the numbers:
Take the 700 blacks who, in 1976, entered 28 selective schools studied by Drs. Bok and Bowen - students who would not have been admitted without race preferences.
Of these, 225 went on to get professional degrees or doctorates; about 70 are doctors, while 60 are lawyers; about 125 are business executives, and more than 300 are civic leaders. Average earnings exceed $71,000 annually. And 65 percent said they were "very satisfied" with their undergraduate experience.
Race-neutral admissions policies, Bok and Bowen argue in their new book "The Shape of the River," would chop the proportion of black students in the most selective schools by 73 percent - and thus chip away at the benefits society has received by strengthening the "backbone of the emergent black middle class."
That's the argument that winds its way through their book, a full-scale counterattack on the increasing antipathy toward race-based admissions policies.
Bok, formerly president of Harvard University, and Bowen, who headed Princeton University, don't advocate race-sensitive admissions to redress societal or historical wrongs toward minorities - including slavery. Instead, they say, diversity in colleges is valuable to both education and society because it boosts minority middle-class earning power and achievement. That's important, since by 2030 about 40 percent of all Americans will be minorities ...
But not everyone is warming to Bok and Bowen's defense.
Abigail Thernstrom, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a New York think tank, argues that "race-sensitive" is just a euphemism for unconstitutional "race-driven" admissions bias - a practice that harms deserving nonminority students who have better test scores and grades.
"That's a wonderful phrase," Ms. Thernstrom says. "It's as if it's just one of many factors thrown in the pot. But race is the determining factor.... That's called race-driven, not race-sensitive." ...
BANGKOK POST
Copyright 1998 FT Asia Intelligence Wire
October 13, 1998HEADLINE: WORLD BANK REPORT- Focus on acquiring knowledge- Information gaps help cause crisis
Achara AshayagachatThe World Bank's new development strategy shows a shift from infrastructure building to knowledge acquisition, in what officials say is a bid to minimise information problems that have led to market failures and hurt the poor.
According to the Bank's 1998/99 Development Report, which was presented at the Foreign Ministry yesterday, the new two-pronged strategy calls for the development of technical knowledge about nutrition, birth control, software engineering and accountancy as well as about attributes such as product quality, worker diligence and creditworthiness of a firm.
Dr Tara Vishwanath of Princeton University said the acquisition of knowledge, whether imported from abroad or created at home, requires the absorption of knowledge, abetted by universal basic education and opportunities for life-long learning. ...
Developing-country governments will effectively narrow knowledge gaps when they make the most of synergies between the acquisition and the absorption of knowledge and create new opportunities for two-way information flows in societies, said Dr Tara. ...
The Gazette
Copyright 1998 Southam Inc. (Montreal)
October 13, 1998, TuesdayHEADLINE: Monica makes a new friend: Notoriety no distraction for Dr. Right
BYLINE: DOUG CAMILLI; THE GAZETTEMonica Lewinsky, whose romantic future fairly evidently doesn't involve the Big Creep, has a gentleman suitor from Australia.
Dr. Chris Burns, 32, a research fellow at Sydney University - he specializes in organic chemistry and molecular engineering , whatever that is - is the guy referred to in the grand jury testimony as Lewinsky's current E-mail intimate.
And the Sydney Morning Herald says Dr. Chris is about ready to hop on a plane and fly to the U.S. to resume the relationship in person.
The two met at Princeton University last year. Evidently, Monica has been looking for Dr. Right for some time.
Newsday
Copyright 1998 Newsday, Inc. (New York, NY)
October 13, 1998, TuesdayHEADLINE: PREVIOUS WINS FOR LI
BYLINE: By Earl Lane. WASHINGTON BUREAU
In addition to the Nobel Prize for medicine awarded yesterday to Hewlett's Robert Furchgott, others who lived or worked on Long Island have won the coveted science prize. ...
- 1980: Val Fitch and James Cronin won the physics prize for experiments at Brookhaven in 1963 while they were visiting from Princeton University. Exploring another fundamental tenet of physics known as CP symmetry, they found a flaw in what was then a central belief: that the universe is completely symmetrical.
National Public Radio
SHOW: NPR TALK OF THE NATION
OCTOBER 13, 1998, TUESDAYHEADLINE: I Need a Hero
GUESTS: David Granger, Susan Ware, Sean WilentzBYLINE: Ray Suarez, Washington DC
HIGHLIGHT: The dictionary defines a hero as a person admired for hi strength and ability; which explains why Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire became instant heroes this summer with their record-breaking home run race. But are celebrities and sports figures sufficient role models? Who are our heroes, and how do they compare with the people our parents and grandparents looked up to? ...
American heroes this hour. To here some people tell it, one of the worst offenses against the national psyche committed by Bill Clinton in having an affair with Monica Lewinsky was not being heroic, not living up to the imaginary place we reserve for larger-than-life characters like presidents. The president has hurt many people not so much by being who he is, but by not being who it is demanded a president must be. ...
With me for the rest of the hour is Susan Ware, the editor of "Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary," and editor of "Forgotten Heroes: Inspiring American Portraits from our Leading Historians." He's in Concord, New Hampshire. Thanks for joining us. ...
SUAREZ: And Sean Wilentz is the Dayton Stockton (ph) professor of history at Princeton University, and director of the American Studies program there. He's written widely on the history of American politics and society. Welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.
SEAN WILENTZ, DAYTON STOCKTON PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR: It's a pleasure to be here. ...
And Sean Wilentz, you (have any heroes)?
WILENTZ: Oh, I certainly have contemporary heroes. One in particular, John Lewis the congressman from Georgia, who matches every definition -- his life matches every definition of hero that you could can concoct; putting his life on the line time after time after time in the Civil Rights movement; going on to be a national political leader.
But I think there's a point to all of this about dead heroes and live heroes, because I think that every generation of Americans has the same crisis or the same problem of wondering where the heroes are now, seeing all the heroes as having been in the past. It's something that every generation does. Ours is no different; we're in a state of, like, hero panic. We're looking for heroes; we don't find them; they all seemed to be in the past. ...
WILENTZ: There's been a democratization, not only of our conception of heroism, but also the people who are eligible. I mean, the culture makers in, what should we say, 1810, 1820, consisted of a far narrower ban of the American population than is the case today. So I think there has been this democratization.
What is a perennial, though, is I think that there still he is, what shall we say, a need among Americans to find those people within them who share their own characteristics but seem to transcend them at the same time. A good example of that in terms of hero worship would be Abraham Lincoln, a person who was hardly to the manner born, an ordinary American, yet who, in the midst of extraordinary crisis, basically held the country together. ...
The Record
Copyright 1998 Bergen Record Corp. (Bergen County, NJ)
October 13, 1998HEADLINE: DEMOCRAT'S AD INVOKES SCANDAL; INCUMBENT CALLED OFF-KEY
BYLINE: HERB JACKSON, Trenton BureauIn a year when most Democrats running for Congress are staying away from President Clinton's troubles, a New Jersey challenger is airing an attack ad that tries to turn the issue against the Republican incumbent.
Rep. Mike Pappas, R-Rocky Hill, enjoyed a few days of national attention in July when he stood on the floor of the House and sang a musical tribute to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr that began, "Twinkle, twinkle Kenneth Starr, now we see how brave you are."
Now, the ditty is the centerpiece of a 60-second radio ad unveiled Monday by Democrat Rush Holt, a Princeton University scientist challenging Pappas bid for a second term."Congress and Pappas spent months and millions on partisan investigations, while voting against what really matters,"an announcer says between verses of Pappas singing. The ad criticizes Pappas on gun
control, education, the environment, and health insurance, then concludes:"Mike Pappas votes against working families. But sang a nursery rhyme to Ken Starr. Congressman Michael Pappas. Out of tune. Out of touch." ...
The Boston Herald
Copyright 1998 Boston Herald Inc.
October 12, 1998 MondaySECTION: EDITORIAL
HEADLINE: Editorial; OP-ED; Kookiness prevails in the curriculum
BYLINE: By Don Feder
Regrettably, most parents don't read college bulletins describing the courses to which their children will be subjected.
If they did, they'd see exactly what they and their kids are getting for upward of $30,000 a year - in many cases, indoctrination in political, racial and sexual theories that could only find a home in academia, or the darker recesses of the Clinton administration.
For the fourth year running, Young America's Foundation, a conservative outfit in Herndon, Va., combed the bulletins of 55 of the nation's leading institutions of higher learning.
It found that, increasingly, colleges and universities are offering indoctrinational courses that present left-wing dogma as revealed truth. ...
With the exception of Princeton, every Ivy League school now offers more courses in women's studies than economics, even though economics majors outnumber women's studies majors by roughly 10-to-1. ...
Business Week
Copyright 1998 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
October 12, 1998HEADLINE: A GREEN THUMB FOR STARTUPS
BYLINE: By Edith UpdikeJared Schutz can't help himself: He starts companies. At 24, he has a BA from Princeton University, a coin collection, a few dogs -- and a business track record that most 60-year-olds would envy.
His first venture was trading government scrap metal, finding buyers for old shell casings and helmets. Sealed bids let the 16-year-old operate with no one the wiser. ''It beat having a paper route,'' Schutz says. In 1994 those earnings provided his grubstake for Chicago-based American Information Systems Inc., a technical consulting firm he co-founded with two partners while still in college.
AIS's revenues are now more than $5 million per year. In 1995, Schutz started up Stardot Consulting in Washington, to help politicians build Web sites. Last year, Daniel Cunningham, 23, tapped Schutz for help founding athletic-equipment dealer Sportscape.com. The two met at Princeton, where Schutz was ''always flying off to his business in Chicago,'' and ''juggling 20 things at once,'' recalls Cunningham. ...
Electronics Times
Copyright 1998 Miller Freeman PLC
October 12, 1998HEADLINE: Teams looking at organic LEDs
The quest to find alternative display technologies to liquid crystals features heavily at IEDM. Organic compounds for display applications are the subject of several papers, including one from the electronics engineering department of the University of Liverpool.
Researchers have discovered that spin-cast, undoped polymers are capable of high, stable electron emissions. They claim that the observed threshold fields of 0.2V/micro m are the lowest so far reported on carbon-based materials.
This discovery offers the possibility of fabricating low-cost displays, particularly if they are integrated with polymer-based transistors, say the authors. ...
A US research group comprising scientists from Sarnoff, Princeton; Planar American, Beaverton; Eastman Kodak, Rochester; and Princeton University will present results from two different operating modes - an OLED driven directly with a voltage supply and an OLED driven by a polysilicon transistor.
The group found that the slow response of the OLED at low drive voltages requires a significantly different approach to an AM OLED display design compared to a passively addressed display. ...
The Houston Chronicle
Copyright 1998 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
October 12, 1998, MondayHEADLINE: Scholarship program offers hope to those who dream of college
BYLINE: T.J. MILLING
Rosie Buentello dreams of being a banker. Her brother, Bob, would prefer a career in computers.
The two Wheatley High School freshmen's dreams came a little closer to reality Saturday with a visit from Project GRAD. The 10-year-old privately funded charity promised them $4,000 college scholarships if they stay in school and get decent grades.
"It gives me a better opportunity of getting out and doing what I want to do," Bob Buentello said.
About 1,000 volunteers for Project GRAD, which stands for Graduating Really Achieves Dreams, visited about 3,500 homes over the weekend to tell students about the program. Many of them were staff members from the three inner-city high schools GRAD supports, Wheatley, Davis and Yates. ...
At that point only about 20 Davis students a year were going on to college, he said. Of 286 Davis graduates this year, he said, 174 qualified for the program with 110 in college already, including one in the Ivy League, Princeton University.
The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
October 12, 1998, MondayNAME: Francis Bacon
HEADLINE: Another Look at Bacon; Newfound Canvases Shed More Light on a Master
BYLINE: By CAROL VOGEL
For several weeks, the basement of Tony Shafrazi's SoHo gallery has been transformed into a makeshift photography studio where scores of high-wattage lights and large-format cameras mingle with paintings of mostly distorted, screaming figures.
The paintings are unmistakably by the hand of Francis Bacon, the Irish-born artist best known for his macabre, twisted images, according to two leading Bacon experts. There is Bacon's well-known figure of a pope boxed inside the canvas, crying out as if trapped in his own anxiety; there is also a triptych of blurred wrestling figures, half human, half animal, and a brilliantly colored landscape that recalls the flat, heavy brush of van Gogh. ...
Sam Hunter, a professor emeritus of art history at Princeton University who has written extensively about Bacon, said he was thunderstruck when he saw some of the works. "They're very powerful," he added. "I think these works are a real find." ...
Roll Call
Copyright 1998 Roll Call, Inc.
October 12, 1998HEADLINE: New Jersey
12th District
Incumbent: Mike Pappas (R)
1st term (50 percent)
Outlook: Likely Republican
National Democrats felt their chances of taking this seat went out the window after the primary.
They wanted to see Carl Mayer, a wealthy attorney, become the Democratic nominee, but local Democrats instead gave the nod to Rush Holt, the former head of the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory.
According to a recent poll taken for Holt, he is 30 points behind Pappas. In the survey, conducted by Lauer, Lalley, Victoria Aug. 29 to Sept. 2 of 400 likely voters, Pappas led Holt, 47 to 17 percent. But the Holt campaign is touting the fact that Pappas was under 50 percent in the survey. While 30 percent said they would vote to re-elect the Congressman, 31 percent said they would consider another candidate and 13 percent said they planned to vote for someone else. ...
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
Copyright 1998 Telegram & Gazette (WORCESTER, MA.)
October 12, 1998 MondayHEADLINE: Professor Pleasure or Professor Death?
BYLINE: Naomi Schaefer
Reprinted with permission of the Wall Street Journal c. 1998 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All rights reserved.
When Princeton University's Center for Human Values offered Peter Singer the Ira W. DeCamp Professorship of Bioethics, the center's leaders may not have realized what they were getting. A somewhat obscure academic at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, Mr. Singer is well known in his field for an uncompromising philosophy that pulls together the disparate strands of abortion-rights proponents, animal-rights activists and advocates of euthanasia. His philosophy may unintentionally do more damage to liberal pieties than a thousand Allan Blooms ever could. ...NOTE: The Wall Street Journal has printed Peter Singer's response to errors and characterizations of his work by Ms. Schaefer, as well as another letter in support of his work.
The Columbian
Copyright 1998 The Columbian Publishing Co. (Vancouver, WA.)
October 11, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: STUDENTS CAN EXCEL WITHOUT PREFERENCES
BYLINE: ANN DONNELLY, For The ColumbianAn African-American senior in a California high school, chronicled earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal, was disappointed when she wasn't accepted by the University of California at Berkeley. With an end to racial preferences in college admissions as required by California's Proposition 209, she was rejected despite her fine academic record.
Under the new admissions criteria, her place on the elite campus was taken by a student with even more stellar credentials. That student was likely Asian American, the minority group most commonly disadvantaged by California's long-time adherence to preferences for African Americans, Hispanics and native Americans.
But before we indulge in hand wringing in this case, we should consider that its outcome hardly marked the end of this student's educational opportunities. The young woman rejected by Berkeley was offered a full scholarship at Willamette University.
Her case is typical. In the wake of Proposition 209, fewer African Americans have been accepted to Berkeley, but evidence indicates their academic careers haven't crashed as a result. More are attending the state's less selective campuses. So an end to preferences, which disadvantage Asian Americans and Caucasians, does not signify an end to opportunities for black students. ...
For starters, racial preferences in college admissions are relevant to only 25 percent of U.S. universities. The rest take all or nearly all applicants, according to an influential 1998 study by William Bowen of Princeton University and Derek Bok of Harvard University. The Bowen-Bok study presents a positive view of affirmative action including racial preferences. According to the authors, preferences have beefed up the African-American middle class and taught white children the value of integration. ...
The Denver Post
Copyright 1998 The Denver Post Corporation
October 11, 1998 SundayHEADLINE: The shape of the river
BYLINE: E.R. ShippIf you are hankering for a good argument about something other than sexual and political shenanigans in Washington, then try talking about affirmative action.
As Derek Bok and William Bowen remind us, critics will say of any selection process that takes race into account "that all such policies accentuate racial differences, intensify prejudice and interfere with progress toward a color-blind society."
Supporters of affirmative action will say it is necessary to "atone for a legacy of oppression and to make up for continuing discrimination," again quoting Bok and Bowen.
Having grown weary of debate devoid of empirical evidence, Bok, a former Harvard University president, and Bowen, a former president of Princeton University, conducted a study to determine the truth about race-sensitive practices in the university setting.
"We felt that after 30 years, it was surely time to discover the facts," they write in their new book, "The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions" (Princeton University Press, $24.95). Ah, facts! In more than 400 pages chock-full of statistics and charts and graphs, the two educators have boldly gone where no one has gone before. They examined the records of 80,000 undergraduates who enrolled in 28 very selective schools in 1951, 1976 and 1989. Race-sensitive admissions practices are not as prevalent as one might think from the timber of the affirmative action debate. Most undergraduate schools, Bok and Bowen say, accept all qualified students. At more selective undergraduate schools, as well as at professional schools, race is but one factor, though race is what those denied admission are most likely to squawk about. ...
The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
October 11, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: Experts Discuss How Arts Can Aid Network
BYLINE: By RONALD SMOTHERSDATELINE: NEWARK, Oct. 10
The arts saved Cleveland and Pittsburgh and they can save Newark, too, participants in a conference at Rutgers University were told today.
The conference, titled "Arts Transforming the Urban Environment," brought together experts from around the world to discuss ways that cities can discover an identity, take pride in their cultural attractions and find the money to rebuild and revitalize themselves.
Such thoughts have been on many minds in Newark in the year since the $180 million New Jersey Performing Arts Center opened with the goal of reviving a city in a protracted physical, social and economic decline. Because of "Newark's large civic gamble on the arts," as Annette Juliano, a professor of art history at Rutgers, put it, the conference was organized to explore and learn from other communities' efforts. The four-day conference is sponsored by Rutgers and ends Sunday. ...
What this investment in the arts says about a society and its people remains a crucial question, said Stanley Katz, director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy at Princeton University. Mr. Katz said he wondered whether large halls like Newark's were an efficient way of accomplishing social goals like instilling an appreciation for the arts in children, and whether efforts to promote cultural tourism were good ways to invest public and private funds in the long run.
"The big question in the end," said Mr. Katz, "is not so much whether there is economic development, but whether there is civic development and a move to a more civil society. What is the real relationship between the jobs created and the building of a civil society?"
Newsday
Copyright 1998 Newsday, Inc. (New York, NY)
October 11, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: NOTEBOOK
ACADEMY OF ST. JOSEPH TEACHER'S SUMMER SEMINAR. Christine Maritato, the science department chairperson at the Academy of Saint Joseph, spent four weeks this summer at Princeton University to study the latest discoveries and teaching methods in the field of environmental Science.
She was one of 39 teachers selected nationwide to attend the program.
The participants also attended the leadership program for teachers at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Newsday
Copyright 1998 Newsday, Inc. (New York, NY)
October 11, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: PAINT PAINS PRINCETON
BYLINE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESSA slogan was spraypainted overnight at midfield in Princeton Stadium just hours before the Tigers beat Brown in an Ivy League football game yesterday, 31-17.
Princeton athletic director Gary Walters said work crews were able to wash out some of the "Go RU" that was written on the grass field in red paint. He hoped the rest would grow out soon.
Princeton spokesman Kurt Kehl said there were three other minor incidents of vandalism also found on campus, including one on Canon Green where a cannon was painted red.There are two universities in the Princeton area that might be considered as possible RUs: either Rutgers or Rider.
Roanoke Times & World News
Copyright 1998 The Roanoke Times & World News
October 11, 1998, SundayHEADLINE: IMPACT OF HABITAT HOMES HARD TO ASSESS
'ANYONE WHO SAYS HABITAT HURTS PROPERTY VALUES - THAT'S INACCURATE'BYLINE: JOHN D. CRAMER THE ROANOKE TIMES
A review of property records suggests that neither proponents nor detractors have a factual basis for their claims pertaining to resale values in Roanoke.
Habitat for Humanity in the Roanoke Valley, long praised for helping the working poor buy their own homes, was criticized this summer for trying to build a large group of houses in a working class neighborhood in West Roanoke.
Previously, Habitat had built individual houses and small groups of houses in low-income neighborhoods -- where its houses were worth more than existing houses -- but its plan to build 32 houses in Westview Terrace was its most ambitious project thus far and its first foray into a slightly fancier neighborhood.
It backfired.
Many Westview residents said the Habitat houses would clash with the neighborhood and lower their property values, and suggested that Habitat residents were undesirable. They also attacked the "secrecy" of Habitat's project, which was on the drawing board for two years but revealed to them only when the bulldozers showed up. ...
But studies by the U.S. General Accounting Office, the University of California at Berkeley, the California Department of Housing and Community Development and Princeton University suggest that affordable housing, such as that provided by Habitat, has little or no effect on surrounding property values. The studies also suggest that affordable housing may benefit the community by bringing in stable, working families and turning public housing and rental dwellers into homeowners.
Asbury Park Press
Copyright 1998 Asbury Park Press, Inc. (Neptune, NJ.)
October 10, 1998, SaturdayHEADLINE: EDITORIAL
Touting values and maybe a campaign
BILL BRADLEY has written a new book. Does this mean the former Democratic senator from New Jersey could be moving closer to declaring his candidacy for his party's nomination for president? Every time he has made a life change, he has written a book preceding it.
His last book, "Time Present, Time Past: A Memoir," was published as he was retiring from the Senate in January 1997 and returning to private life. His first book, "Life on the Run," was written as he moved from the basketball arena to the political stage. A former star on the Princeton University and New York Knicks basketball teams, he was first elected to the Senate in 1978. He was re-elected in 1984 and 1990. He decided against seeking re-election in 1996.
Bradley's new book, "Values of the Game," hearkens back to his playing days and touts 10 values (passion, discipline, selflessness, respect, perspective, courage, leadership, responsibility, resilience and imagination) as a guide to both basketball and life. Without questioning the earnestness of his effort, that sounds suspiciously like the kind of book someone who's running for president would want to publish before becoming a candidate.
Bradley says all 10 values transfer to politics, especially resilience. That's particularly apt as values have become the hot topic in today's political world with the sex scandal enmeshing President Clinton and the impeachment inquiry voted by Congress. It would be no wonder if the book sold well to a reading public aching for a return to such values.
The Guardian
Copyright 1998 Guardian Newspapers Limited (London)
October 10, 1998HEADLINE: Jail bait;
Amnesty International this week accused the US prison system of brutalising its inmates. American novelist Joyce Carol Oates remembers the shaming prison visit she tried to forget for 14 years
BYLINE: JOYCE CAROL OATES
We enter the world as purely physical beings; and leave it in the same way. In between, we labour pridefully to establish identities, selves distinct from our bodies. Not what we are but who we are. This is the crux of our humanity.
I had reason to believe myself established in my identity. I had been a professional woman for more than 20 years, and had been attached to Princeton University for some time; a woman who had earned, it might be argued, the privilege of being no longer a woman exclusively, but a person. This episode, this humiliating experience, occurred in March 1984. I told no one about it afterwards, failing to find an adequate language in which to transpose it into an entertaining anecdote. For perhaps 11 years I did not think of it. I had not so much forgotten it as dismissed it.
The occasion was a guided tour through a New Jersey prison facility. The Millstone County Detention Center, I'll call it. From the outside, it did not appear conspicuously different from the old weather-worn factories, warehouses and trainyards in the vicinity. The walls were high, 10 or 12 feet of grey discoloured concrete that appeared to be exuding an oily damp, topped with razor wire in sinuous coils. When I parked my car, I smelled a sharp odour, as of coins held in a sweating palm, that might have been blown from a chemical factory near the river, but was concentrated in the area around the Detention Center. ...
My identity that day was not writer but professor of humanities, Princeton University. I'm unable to remember the names, even the faces, of these other visitors, except that they were all men, and, like me, Caucasian. The fact of race would not seem significant outside the context of a state prison in which so many inmates are black; Caucasians rarely feel any binding principle otherwise.
Our tour guide was an officer from the New Jersey State Correctional Facility, wearing a bright coppery badge that identified him as a sergeant and an instructor of firearms. An affable, smiling, stocky-muscled man of vigorous middle age with a flushed face and a habit of winking, or seeming to wink, as he spoke; eyes like transparent blue glass, alert, intelligent, yet cast for the most part over our heads. ...
If the tour had ended at this point, my impressions would have been disturbing, even depressing, but not annihilating, in no way personal. The dominant sensation was physical: extreme fatigue, eye ache. But, unfortunately, the tour did not end at that point. We were observing a cell block on the fifth floor, one of numerous 30-man cell blocks in the facility, the heart of the modern prison system.
No privacy for these men except at the very rear of their cells, and these cells measuring six feet by eight. The effect was like that of a zoo enclosure or an aquarium. Don't make eye contact with any inmate, an inner voice admonished even as I drifted close to the window. Perhaps I was trying to ease away from the sergeant's droning voice. Perhaps by this time I was not thinking very coherently. And in this state I was careless, and met the startled gazes of two young inmates standing near the window, about 10 feet below. They were husky black men in their mid-twenties. They were frowning at me, staring at me, as if they'd never seen anything quite like me before in their lives. Their faces showed consternation, resentment, fury. It was a reflexive act on my part: I was confused, and smiled. The most natural of female reactions: the first impulse, frightened of the male, you smile. Not with the eyes which show fear but with the mouth, promising compliance. ...
In idle-seeming but purposeful eddies, younger men began to drift boldly forward to within a few feet of the window. They bared their teeth, grinned and rolled their eyes. Their mouths shaped words I could not hear. I stood paralysed, stricken with embarrassment and mounting panic. Males, in a pack. The female terror of becoming an object of male sexual desire, prey. Multiple rape, rape to the death, a frenzy of propagation. The life-force gone wild, blocked-up seed yearning only to be spilled. Why didn't the sergeant, or the guards in the station, notice? Didn't my tour companions notice? Certain of the younger, more emboldened inmates were flashing outright grins and their hands moved suggestively. White bitch! White cunt! Yet I could not look away, as if I'd been hypnotised. Perhaps I was still smiling, in my terror, a ghastly fixed smile like a death's head. It was as if I stood naked before strangers, utterly exposed and in such exposure annihilated. ...
The Houston Chronicle
Copyright 1998 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
October 10, 1998, SaturdayHEADLINE: Confronting the culture
BYLINE: RICHARD VARA, Houston Chronicle Religion Writer
Richard Land challenges consciences - whether his audience is fellow Southern Baptists or national radio listeners.
He has called on the Southern Baptist Convention to repent for past racism. He calls for President Bill Clinton, a Southern Baptist, to resign because he has lost the "moral authority" he needs to be president. He calls for husbands to love their wives and for wives to obey husbands.
Land, a former Houstonian, is the high-profile president of the convention's Nashville-based Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It is the convention's watchdog on national religious liberty issues such as school prayer, as well as social and moral issues such as abortion and gambling. The Princeton- and Oxford-educated Land voices the convention's biblically conservative stance.
He is an example of the media-savvy evangelicals who have sparked the growing conservatism in the 16 million-member convention. His flexibility has earned him some begrudging respect from opponents.
"We are out to confront the culture," Land said. And confront he does. ...
Preparing for seminary, Land decided to attend Princeton University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1969. He said that school was hostile to religion, and he often found himself the lone evangelical in a class.
"But I found it exciting and challenging," he said. "I learned a whole lot more about why I believed what I believed." ...
The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
October 10, 1998, SaturdayHEADLINE: Doctors Using Hybrid Egg to Tackle Infertility in Older Women
BYLINE: By DENISE GRADYDoctors in New York have become the first to try to make an infertile woman pregnant by plucking the genes out of one of her eggs and inserting them into a younger woman's egg that has had its own genes removed. The resulting hybrid egg is then fertilized and placed into the older woman's womb.
It is not known whether anyone treated with the technique has become pregnant.
Although the new technique has been described by its developer, Dr. James Grifo of New York University, as an effort to help women with longstanding infertility, other scientists have called it a step toward human cloning and said it raises troubling ethical and medical questions. ...
Dr. Lee Silver, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, said, "What's most fantastic is that this is exactly the technology used for cloning. It's nuclear transfer, exactly what you would do in cloning, except in cloning you would be transferring an adult cell."
The technique, Dr. Silver said, is just "the first step along the way" to human cloning. ...
The News and Observer
Copyright 1998 The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
October 10, 1998 SaturdayHEADLINE: Family planning alternative catches on
BYLINE: Yonat Shimron, STAFF WRITER
Terry Sedito had to drag her skeptical husband to a lecture on Natural Family Planning 12 years ago. To him, the notion of giving up contraceptives for a method that had failed thousands of other Roman Catholic couples meant two things: more hassles and more babies.
But two years later, Sal Sedito became a true convert. Today he and his wife speak before groups encouraging other Catholics and, these days, Protestants too, to try a natural form of birth control.
"It's difficult to talk about," said Sedito, who has four children. "People say, 'If I use that, I'm going to wind up having a baby.' We tell them, 'This is more scientific. It's proven, and it works.' "
After years of bad press, scientific criticism and widespread lampooning, Natural Family Planning is gaining a better reputation. Because it can more accurately pinpoint the days when a woman is fertile, the method is re-emerging as a viable alternative to the old "rhythm" or "calendar" system that often resulted in unwanted pregnancies. ...
"Most of these methods are very effective when used correctly and consistently," said James Trussell, a demographer at Princeton University's Office of Population Research. "But they are very unforgiving if used inconsistently. If you're using the method incorrectly, you're having sex on a risky day." ...
The Palm Beach Post
Copyright 1998 Palm Beach Newspaper, Inc.October 10, 1998, Saturday
HEADLINE: FUNERAL NOTICES
ROBERT R. BRAEDER, 71, a long-time resident of Upper Montclair before his retirement to Jupiter, FL, died October 7, 1998, at Jupiter Medical Center.He was mid-Atlantic district sales manager for Deluxe Check Printers and retired in 1988. He was born in East Orange, NJ, and attended Pingry Prep School. He served in the Pacific in the US Navy during World War II, and graduated from Princeton -University in the Class of 1948. He was a former member of the Upper Montclair Country Club and was a current board member of the Palm Beach Council of the Navy League. ...
The Times
Copyright 1998 Times Newspapers Limited (London)
October 10, 1998, SaturdayHEADLINE: And man created man
BYLINE: Jeremy RifkinHuman organs grown in jars, plants that growplastic, vat-produced orange juice and artificial skin - Jeremy Rifkin has seen the future, and it's completely unnatural. Welcome to the Biotech Century. Photograph by Martin H Simon.
Never before in history has humanity been so unprepared for the new technological and economic opportunities, challenges and risks that lie on the horizon. Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next few decades than in the previous thousand years. By the year 2025, we and our children may be living in a world utterly different from anything human beings have ever experienced in the past. ...
There are many convergent forces coming together to create this powerful new social current. At the epicentre is a technology revolution unmatched in all of history in its power to remake ourselves, our institutions and our planet. Scientists are beginning to reorganise life at the genetic level. The new tools of biology are opening up opportunities for re-fashioning life on Earth while foreclosing options that have existed over the millennia of evolutionary history. Before our eyes lies an uncharted new landscape whose contours are being shaped in thousands of biotechnology laboratories in universities, government agencies and corporations around. If the claims already being made for the new science are only partially realised, the consequences for society and future generations are likely to be enormous. ...
The new so-called "pharming" technology moved a step closer to commercial reality on February 22, 1997, when Ian Wilmut, a 52-year-old Scottish embryologist, announced the cloning of the first mammal in history - a sheep named Dolly. Wilmut replaced the DNA in a normal sheep egg with the DNA from the mammary gland of an adult sheep. He tricked the egg into growing and inserted it into the womb of another sheep. The birth of Dolly is a milestone event of the emerging Biotechnological Age. It is now possible to mass-produce identical copies of a mammal, each indistinguishable from the original.
Shortly after the announcement of Dolly's birth, Wilmut and a research team led by Dr Keith Campbell of PPL Therapeutics, reported the birth of a second cloned sheep named Polly, who contains a customised human gene in her biological code. Researchers added a human gene to foetal sheep cells growing in a laboratory dish and then cloned a sheep from the enhanced cells. The experiment caught even normally staid scientists by surprise. "After Dolly, everyone would have expected this. But they were saying it would happen in five to ten years," said Dr Lee Silver, a molecular geneticist at Princeton University. ...