ScienceWeek

SCIENCE-WEEK

A Weekly Email Digest of the News of Science

A journal devoted to the improvement of communication
between the scientific disciplines, and between scientists,
science educators, and science policy-makers.

November 10, 2000 -- Vol. 4 Number 45

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We have our Keepers of the Flame, people who hold
and protect the torch and keep it ready for those
who would grasp the torch and run with it. We call
these Keepers "librarians".
-- Anonymous

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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Section 1
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Contents of this Issue (Full reports in Section 2):

1. SCIENCE POLICY:
A CALL FOR BETTER CONDITIONS FOR POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
Over the past 20 years, the number of postdocs in the US has more
than doubled to approximately 52,000. At some universities,
postdoctoral fellows outnumber students, and more than half of US
postdocs are foreigners. Postdocs fare better financially in
physics than in other sciences: the median annual salary in 1997
for academic postdocs in physics was $34,000, compared with
$27,000 in the life sciences. And it is the life sciences that
have the most and the longest postdoctoral appointments. A new
report concludes that postdocs need better mentoring, better
compensation, more information on employment opportunities, more
assistance in planning their careers, and opportunities to learn
a number of career skills. (Physics Today November 2000)

2. EARTH SCIENCES: ON THE PERIODICITY OF THE ICE AGES
The direct energy-budget effects of the Earth's orbital
variations are apparently insufficient to drive the large
amplitude of the glacial cycles that are observed, and orbital
variations alone do not provide an obvious cause of the rapid
climate transitions evident in paleoclimatic and
paleooceanographic records. Positive feedbacks within the Earth's
climate system must amplify orbital forcing to produce glacial
cycles, but the operation of these internal feedbacks is poorly
understood. In an extensive review, it is suggested the most
viable hypotheses for the cause of glacial/interglacial carbon
dioxide change involve the extraction of carbon from the surface
ocean by biological production, either at low or high latitudes,
necessarily allied with changes in the marine calcium carbonate
budget. (Nature 19 Oct 00 407:859)

3. PLANETARY SCIENCE:
EVIDENCE SUPPORTING POSSIBILITY OF LOW-TEMPERATURE LIFE-BEARING
METEORITES
Ultra-high resolution magnetometer images of the magnetic field
of meteorite ALH84001 reveal a spatially heterogeneous pattern of
magnetization associated with fractures and rock fragments.
Heating the meteorite to 40 degrees centigrade reduces the
intensity of some magnetic features, indicating that the interior
of the rock has not been above this temperature since before its
ejection from the surface of Mars. These results suggest that
major impact events are capable of moving rocks from the surface
of Mars to the surface of Earth without subjecting them to
temperatures high enough to cause thermal sterilization of
eukarya or bacteria, and are considered to support the hypothesis
that meteorites could transfer life between planets in the Solar
System. (Science 27 Oct 00 290:791)

4. ORIGIN OF LIFE:
ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS AS PREBIOTIC CHEMICAL REACTORS
An analysis of the structure of ocean-based aerosols suggests
that large populations of aerosol particles may have provided an
environment for the concentration of prebiotic molecular species
and for their chemical transformation through exposure to the
fluctuating fields of humidity, temperature, and sunlight
available in the atmosphere of primitive Earth at different
altitudes and latitudes. Coagulation and division of the
particles could have resulted in an increased diversity of
molecular species and an early mechanism for reproduction and
replication of successful molecular populations.
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. US 24 Oct 00 97:11864)

5. HISTORY OF SCIENCE:
BIOLOGISTS AND PHYSICISTS AND NAZI SCIENCE
A new report from Germany indicates that Ernst Ruedin, director
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, and
Ernst Fischer and Otmar von Verschuer, both of whom headed the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology in Berlin during the
Nazi era, advised the Nazis at the highest levels concerning
racial policies, and that Ruedin played a major role in programs
that forcibly castrated and sterilized 400,000 men, women, and
children during the period 1933 to 1945. A news brief of the
report contains a photograph released by the German Max Planck
Society, the photograph showing Max Planck at a meeting of the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Metal Research in 1935, with Planck
flanked by two uniformed senior Nazis. The caption to the
photograph reads "Close ties: Max Planck (centre) at the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute...", an astonishing implication that Max
Planck, contrary to established evidence, was an active
collaborator with the Nazi regime. (Nature 19 Oct 00 407:823)

6. HISTORY OF BIOLOGY: ON VITALISM
The roots of what is called "vitalism", the idea that living
things possess a mysterious force or property that differentiates
them from non-living things (a now defunct approach to biological
systems), can probably be traced back to Aristotle and beyond.
But the modern origin is perhaps the proposal by the chemist J.J.
Berzelius (1779-1848) in 1807 that chemical substances be divided
into "organic" and "inorganic", with organic substances those
that are the products of organisms and inorganic substances those
characteristic of the inanimate world. A new essay suggests that
vitalism's singular place in history rests on its attempt to
reconcile two opposing needs -- the need for analytical reasoning
and the need to celebrate the mystery of human experience, and
that the life of the Swedish chemist Jon Jacob Berzelius traced
the tensions between these concerns in dramatic detail.
(Nature 12 Oct 00 407:677)

7. IN FOCUS:
PHYSICS, MECHANICS, AND PHILOSOPHICAL PREDILECTIONS

8. FROM THE SCIENCEWEEK ARCHIVE:
ON THE IMPACT OF SOCIETY ON SCIENCE

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Section 2
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

1. SCIENCE POLICY:
A CALL FOR BETTER CONDITIONS FOR POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
     In the US, a postdoctoral fellow (a "postdoc") is someone
with a PhD who receives a fellowship to work under an established
researcher-supervisor, usually at a university, and usually with
the fellowship attached to the established researcher (i.e., the
fellowship is not transferable).
     In the sciences in the US, a postdoctoral fellowship is now
the customary research apprenticeship following the PhD, and in
some fields is considered mandatory for anyone contemplating an
academic research career. Postdoctoral fellowships are usually
renewable, and an individual may have such a status for as little
as one year to more than five years. There are few guidelines,
much flexibility, and many problems. A graduate student has yet
to attain a PhD; a postdoctoral fellow has a Phd but has yet to
attain a secure academic position. After graduate students,
postdoctoral fellows are perhaps the most underprivileged group
in US academic science: they are in a murky purgatory between
students and faculty; their careers are dependent on the whims of
their supervisors; and in most fields, there are too many
postdocs and not enough academic positions that need to be
filled.
     Concerning this last problem -- the relatively low number of
available faculty jobs -- some people have advocated a Darwinian
approach: encourage a large number of students, via a large
number of available fellowships, to seek an academic research
career, and if many of those fail to find academic jobs afterward
because enough academic jobs are not available, let them fall by
the wayside into non-academic research jobs (or out of research
altogether), since they are probably not qualified for academic
research anyway. True, there will be many individual
disappointments and even heartbreaks, but that is the way of
things.
     No, that is not necessarily the way of things. Many people
in science (including the Editor of this publication) consider
this Darwinian solution repugnant. The fact that natural
selection is a primary process in the evolution of biological
systems does not make it an acceptable process in human affairs.
In fact, one can argue that the main point of "human affairs" is
to effect a departure from the constraints of evolution.
... ... Toni Feder (_Physics Today_, US) reviews a new report by
the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (US
National Academy of Sciences) on postdoctoral fellowships in the
US. The authors makes the following points:
     1) The author points out that over the past 20 years, the
number of postdocs in the US has more than doubled to
approximately 52,000. At some universities, postdoctoral fellows
outnumber students, and more than half of US postdocs are
foreigners.
     2) David Goodstein, vice provost at the California Institute
of Technology (US), and the person at that institution
responsible for the welfare of postdoctoral fellows, says: "They
are the least protected of all classes in the academic world.
Nobody particularly looks after postdocs, who are extremely
vulnerable -- they can't get another job if they fall out with
their adviser."
     3) Steven Sample, president of the University of Southern
California (US), who chaired a 1998 study on postdocs, says: "The
postdoc has become the de facto terminal academic credential in
the sciences. The PhD has become a way station toward full
membership in the research community."
     4) Postdocs fare better financially in physics than in other
sciences: the median annual salary in 1997 for academic postdocs
in physics was $34,000, compared with $27,000 in the life
sciences. And it is the life sciences that have the most and the
longest postdoctoral appointments.
     5) The new National Academy of Sciences report states:
"Postdocs need better mentoring, better compensation, more
information on employment opportunities, more assistance in
planning their careers, and opportunities to learn a number of
career skills."
-----------
Toni Feder: Study calls for better conditions for postdocs.
(Physics Today November 2000)
QY: Toni Feder: pt@aip.org
-------------------
Summary by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 10Nov00
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm
-------------------
Related Background:
POSTDOCTORAL TRAINING: PATTERNS AND PROBLEMS
Recent reports in the US have claimed that increasing numbers of
PhD scientists are holding postdoctoral appointments for longer
periods than ever, and concern about the implications for careers
in the life sciences has prompted warnings of overproduction of
PhDs in the life sciences. The last US postdoctoral survey was
published 15 years ago, so that recent comprehensive data
concerning postdoctoral appointees in general has been
unavailable.
... ... M. Nerad and J. Cerny (University of California Berkeley,
US) now report the highlights of a new study (PhDs -- Ten Years
Later [PTYL]), which collected data on the career paths of
scientists and engineers in biochemistry, computer science,
electrical engineering, and mathematics, including the role of
postdoctoral appointments [*Note #1]. The authors make the
following points:
     1) Postdoctoral appointments can have different functions
and meanings, depending on the field and whether the postdoctoral
fellow is a man or a woman. The PTYL study confirmed that in
biochemistry, the postdoctoral fellowship, not the PhD, has
become the general proving ground for excellence both in academia
and industry. Because they spend a longer time in these
"mandatory" postdoctoral positions, biochemists had the largest
proportion of untenured faculty 10 to 13 years after the PhD.
     2) In mathematics, where substantially fewer postdoctoral
positions are available, PhDs taking postdocs are more likely to
obtain faculty positions, but this is true only for men.
     3) The authors suggest university administrators should be
accountable for monitoring the total time spent in these
positions and should provide administrative assistance for skills
training, career growth, and the job search. The authors also
suggest that creative solutions concerning the dual-career couple
phenomenon are necessary.
-----------
M. Nerad and J. Cerny: Postdoctoral patterns, career advancement,
and problems.
(Science 3 Sep 99 285:1533)
QY: Maresi Nerad, 424 Sproul Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-5900 US.
... ... *Note #1: The national study was conducted by the authors
and involved 6000 PhDs from 6 disciplines: biochemistry, computer
science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and
political science. The PhDs were from 61 doctoral-granting
institutions across the US. The survey population accounted for
57 percent of the PhDs awarded at all US institutions in the 6
selected disciplines between 1 July 1982 and 30 June 1985.
-------------------
Summary & Notes by SCIENCE-WEEK [http://scienceweek.com] 15Oct99
-------------------
Related Background:
ON THE OVERPRODUCTION OF US BIOMEDICAL RESEARCHERS
There are always practical problems concerning the training of
scientists, but two persistent questions are How many? and Where
do they work? Marincola and Solomon (2 installations, US), in a
recent editorial in the journal _Science_, review the current
problems in the training of biomedical research scientists (and
propose a solution), but the ideas are perhaps just as applicable
to physics and chemistry. The authors make the following points: 
1) Although the number of biomedical research trainees in the US
has expanded considerably over the past 20 years, the number of
tenured positions is declining. 2) The average time to obtain a
PhD rose from 4.4 years in the 1970s to 5.6 years in the 1990s.
3) Each principal investigator trains many times the single
scientist required to replace himself or herself. This intrinsic
instability could threaten the profession. 4) Many researchers
perceive that science is thriving at increasing and unacceptable
cost to those being trained. In strictly economic terms, it is in
the interest of senior investigators to maintain the number of
trainees, who work long hours in large numbers for little pay
over many years in return for the chance to develop a satisfying
career. 5) A solution may be to uncouple scientific productivity
from an investigator's ability to attract and employ trainees --
the creation of permanent research positions for scientists who
would neither compete for grants nor train others. They would be
supported through investigators who hold traditional academic
appointments. The authors give as an example the institution of
3-year positions for researchers at the Scripps Institute (US).
The essential idea, then, is the amplification of the number of
already existing non-tenure "research associate" positions, these
positions to be filled by PhDs on a continuing short-term
contract basis. The authors state: "This career track could be
recognized explicitly, legitimized, and nourished to become an
element of the research enterprise." The editorial does not
address the question of how this two-tier structure will satisfy
the career objectives of young scientists who are first-rate, but
because of lack of employment opportunities, are forced into the
second tier.
QY: Elizabeth Marincola 
(Science 31 Jul 98 281:64) (Science-Week 28 Aug 98)
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm

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2. EARTH SCIENCES: ON THE PERIODICITY OF THE ICE AGES
Over the past half million years, there have occurred
approximately 5 cycles of planetary warming and cooling. In each
cycle, a gradual cooling apparently takes place until full
glacial conditions are reached in lower latitudes, and then
sudden warming occurs and the ice quickly retreats to the poles.
During the ice ages, 40 to 50 million cubic kilometers of ice
build up on the land, making enormous ice domes in Antarctica,
North America, and western Eurasia. Part of the reason for the
cyclic pattern of glaciation is now known: the shifts in
temperature in the ice ages apparently correspond closely with
subtle changes in the Earth's orbit and the tilt of its axis of
rotation. This theory, proposed by M. Milankovich (1879-1958),
provides an explanation of the cyclical ups and downs of
temperature during the past half million or more years, but the
theory does not explain either the suddenness or the magnitude of
some of the changes.
... ... D.M. Sigman and E.A. Boyle (2 installations, US) present
an extensive review of current ideas concerning
glacial/interglacial variations, the authors making the following
points:
     1) The authors point out that the past 2 million years have
been characterized by large cyclic variations in climate and
glaciation. During cold "ice age" periods, large continental ice
sheets cover much of the polar Northern Hemisphere, while during
intervening warm periods ("interglacials"), Northern Hemisphere
glaciation wanes drastically. The ultimate pacing of these
glacial cycles is statistically linked to cyclic changes in the
orbital parameters of the Earth, with characteristic
periodicities of approximately 100,000, 41,000, and 23,000 years.
These orbitally driven variations in the seasonal and spatial
distribution of solar radiation incident on the Earth's surface,
known as "Milankovich cycles", after their discoverer, are
thought to be the fundamental drivers of glacial/interglacial
oscillations. However, the direct energy-budget effects of the
orbital variations are insufficient to drive the large amplitude
of the glacial cycles that are observed, and orbital variations
alone do not provide an obvious cause of the rapid climate
transitions evident in paleoclimatic and paleooceanographic
records. It is apparent that positive feedbacks within the
Earth's climate system must amplify orbital forcing to produce
glacial cycles, but the operation of these internal feedbacks is
poorly understood. One of the central goals of Earth science is
to develop a mechanistic understanding of the Earth's climate
feedbacks, the roles they have played over glacial cycles, and
the roles that we should expect them to play in the future.
     2) Twenty years ago, measurements on ice cores demonstrated
that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was
lower during ice ages than it is today. As yet, there is no
broadly accepted explanation for this difference. Current
investigations focus on the "biological pump" of the ocean, the
sequestration of carbon in the ocean interior by the "rain" of
organic carbon out of the surface ocean, and its effect on the
burial of calcium carbonate in marine sediments. Some researchers
speculate that the whole-ocean reservoir of algal nutrients was
larger during glacial times, strengthening the biological pump at
low latitudes, where these nutrients are currently limiting.
Other researchers propose that the biological pump was more
efficient during glacial times because of more complete
utilization of nutrients at high latitudes, where much of the
nutrient supply currently goes unused. In their review, the
authors (Sigman and Boyle) present a version of the latter
hypothesis that focuses on the open ocean surrounding Antarctica,
the hypothesis involving both the biology and physics of that
region.
     3) The authors suggest the most viable hypotheses for the
cause of glacial/interglacial carbon dioxide change involve the
extraction of carbon from the surface ocean by biological
production, either at low or high latitudes, necessarily allied
with changes in the marine calcium carbonate budget. The authors
suggest that much work remains to be done before a consensus can
emerge on the specific driver of glacial/interglacial carbon
dioxide changes.
-----------
D.M. Sigman and E.A. Boyle: Glacial/interglacial variations in
atmospheric carbon dioxide.
(Nature 19 Oct 00 407:859)
QY: Daniel M. Sigman: sigman@princeton.edu
-------------------
Summary by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 10Nov00
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm
-------------------
Related Background:
A SIMULATION MODEL FOR MODERN AND GLACIAL CLIMATES
In 1920, the meteorologist Milutin Milankovic proposed that small
changes in Earth's orbit, precession, and inclination affect the
heat balance and modify climate (the alterations called "solar
forcing"). The Milankovic hypothesis was not taken seriously
until 1976, when teams studying sediment cores from the ocean
floor constructed a history of ocean temperature that matched the
predictions of the Milankovic hypothesis, with two different
ocean cores providing similar results. Until now, simulation
models of Earth's climate history have been either ocean models
or atmosphere models, with no model accounting for the interact-
ions between the ocean and the atmosphere aside from adjustable
heat flux parameters that result in only a weak theory. In
general, complete solutions of these individual models have
involved prohibitive computation times. The term "glacial
maximum" refers to the time or position of the greatest extent of
glaciation, and the term "hydrologic cycle" refers to the
complete cycle through which water passes: from the ocean,
through the atmosphere, to the land, and back to the ocean.
... ... Ganopolski et al (4 authors at Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research, DE) now report a moderately simplified
global coupled ocean-atmosphere model to simulate the equilibrium
climate of both the present and of the last glacial maximum, and
that the model successfully predicts the atmospheric and oceanic
circulations, temperature distribution, hydrologic cycle, and
sea-ice cover of both periods without using flux adjustments. The
authors suggest that changes in oceanic circulation, particularly
in the Atlantic Ocean, play an important role in glacial cooling,
and that ultimately the challenge is to produce a simulation of
glacial cycles driven only by the Milankovic cycles in solar
forcing.
-----------
QY: Stefan Rahmstorf: rahmstorf@pik-potsdam.de
(Nature 22 Jan 98) (Science-Week 6 Feb 98)
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

3. PLANETARY SCIENCE:
EVIDENCE SUPPORTING POSSIBILITY OF LOW-TEMPERATURE LIFE-BEARING
METEORITES
In 1984, a 1.9 kilogram meteorite the size of a potato
(designated ALH84001) was found in Antarctica, and because of its
chemical composition the consensus is that this meteorite (and a
dozen similar meteorites) originated from the planet Mars. The
basis for the consensus is the detailed quantitative
correspondence of the trapped gases in the meteorites to Martian
atmospheric gases, and the specific distributions of oxygen
isotopes. In 1996 a group of researchers, D. McKay et al
(National Aeronautics and Space Administration Johnson Space
Center, US; Stanford University, US) reported they had concluded
that unusual characteristics of the meteorite ALH84001 can be
most reasonably interpreted as vestiges of ancient Martian
bacterial life. In particular, the authors noted the presence of
tubules 20 to 40 nanometers in diameter (called by some
"nannobacteria" or "nanobacteria"), and they proposed these
structures were fossilized bacteria or parts of microorganisms.
The report was first delivered at a press conference in August
1996 (published as a paper 9 days later) and provoked
considerable media attention and controversy when it appeared.
The controversy has continued, with many biologists objecting to
the interpretation of the rock data, and in particular objecting
to the idea of "bacteria" 20 to 40 nanometers in diameter.
... ... B.P. Weiss et al (7 authors at 3 installations, US CA)
present the results of analysis of images of the magnetic field
of the Martian meteorite ALH84001, the authors making the
following points:
     1) The authors point out that large-body impacts are the
only known natural processes capable of ejecting a rock from
Mars. It has been suggested that some rocks could be ejected
without being shocked and heated, and laboratory experiments have
produced chipped fragments of only lightly shocked material
moving at approximately 20 percent of Martian escape velocity,
and thermal conductivity calculations demonstrate that passage
through Earth's atmosphere will not heat the interior of
meteorites larger than 0.3 centimeters above 100 degrees
centigrade.
     2) The authors report that ultra-high resolution
magnetometer images of the magnetic field of meteorite ALH84001
reveal a spatially heterogeneous pattern of magnetization
associated with fractures and rock fragments. Heating the
meteorite to 40 degrees centigrade reduces the intensity of some
magnetic features, indicating that the interior of the rock has
not been above this temperature since before its ejection from
the surface of Mars.
     3) The authors report their results thus indicate that major
impact events are capable of moving rocks from the surface of
Mars to the surface of Earth without subjecting them to
temperatures high enough to cause thermal sterilization of
eukarya or bacteria. Dynamic simulations of Martian impact events
indicate that materials can be launched into a wide variety of
orbits. The authors suggest that although most of the
approximately 1 ton of Martian rocks that are believed to land on
Earth each year have spent several million years in space, one in
10^(7) of the arriving rocks will have made the journey in less
than a year, and that every million years, approximately 10 rocks
larger than 100 grams are estimated to be transferred in just 2
to 3 years of travel time. It has been estimated that bacterial
spores, as well as microorganisms within rocks, can survive in
deep space for more than 5 years. Thus, the authors suggest,
their results indicate that it may not be necessary to protect
Earth's present biosphere by quarantining rocks retrieved by a
Mars sample return mission, since conditions have been
appropriate to allow low-temperature rocks -- and, if present,
microorganisms -- from Mars to be transported to Earth throughout
most of geological time.
     4) In summary, the authors state: "[Our] data support the
hypothesis that meteorites could transfer life between planets in
the Solar System."
-----------
B.P. Weiss et al: A low temperature transfer of ALH84001 from
Mars to Earth.
(Science 27 Oct 00 290:791)
QY: Benjamin P. Weiss: bweiss@gps.caltech.edu
-------------------
Summary by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 10Nov00
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm
-------------------
Related Background:
THE MARTIAN METEORITE MICROBES CONTROVERSY: AN UPDATE
... ... Allan Treiman (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, US) presents a review and update of the ALH84001
meteorite controversy, the author making the following points: 1)
Early hopes for a fast resolution of the controversy concerning
meteorite ALH84001 have evaporated: no agreement has emerged on
whether or not the meteorite ever contained Martian life. 2)
There is no disagreement that ALH84001 formed on Mars
approximately 4.5 billion years ago, that the meteorite was
probably ejected into space approximately 16 million years ago by
an asteroid impact, that the meteorite fell in Antarctica 13,000
years ago, and that the meteorite remained in Antarctica until
found on the ice in 1984. 3) ALH84001 is an igneous rock (i.e., a
rock congealed from a molten mass) that apparently crystallized
slowly from molten lava and which contains globules of carbonate
minerals scattered along fractures. All the evidence for life is
in the carbonate globules or their rims. 4) The 4 lines of
evidence originally proposed by the McKay group were a) the
presence in the meteorite of carbon compounds (polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons) suggestive of decayed organic matter; b)
the presence in the meteorite of unusual small crystals of
magnetite (an iron oxide) matching identical crystals believed to
be produced only by Earth bacteria; c) the presence in the
meteorite of apparently incompatible minerals (e.g., iron-sulfide
and iron-oxide) close together whose proximity would suggest
organic action if the rock were from Earth; and d) the presence
in the meteorite of bacteria-shaped formations. 5) The author
[Treiman] suggests that a) The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
may or may not be Martian, and if they are, they may or may not
be related to life. b) The magnetite crystals are indeed Martian,
but there is evidence that some of these crystals formed without
life and the origin of the others remains unclear. c) The mineral
associations in the carbonate globules do not prove life, but
also do not exclude it. d) The bacteria-shaped objects in
ALH84001 are not fossil bacteria but could be fossils of bacteria
fragments. (McKay's group now agrees that the objects are too
small to be fossil microbes.) 6) The author concludes: "McKay's
original hypothesis (as expressed in the 1996 paper) depended on
all four lines of evidence working together... The evidence has
not been verified, so the hypothesis has not succeeded... Despite
world attention, significant spending, and the work of the best
laboratories on Earth, the question [of life on Mars] is
unresolved."
-----------
Allan Treiman: Microbes in a Martian meteorite?
(Sky & Telescope April 1999) (ScienceWeek 21 May 99)
QY: Allan Treiman: treiman@lpi.jsc.nasa.gov
-------------------
Related Background:
EVIDENCE THAT MARTIAN METEORITE AMINO ACIDS ARE CONTAMINANTS
As the subunits that compose protein polymers in living systems,
the detection of certain amino acids in a material is often
interpreted as indicating a possible biological origin. The
meteorite ALH84001, along with a number of other discovered
meteorites, has a composition that suggests it was apparently
ejected from the surface of Mars, and during the past year it has
been proposed that microanalysis of this meteorite indicates the
possible presence of bio-organics and biogenic fossils. This
proposal, however, has met with considerable controversy, and the
controversy is still in full force. ... ... Bada et al (4 authors
at 3 installations, US) now report that the amino acids present
in a sample of the ALH84001 meteorite appear to be terrestrial in
origin and similar to those found in the ice where the meteorite
was discovered, although the possibility remains that minute
amounts of endogenous amino acids are preserved in the meteorite.
The authors suggest that radiocarbon studies (cf. contiguous
report: Jull et al, Science 279:366 1998), coupled with their own
amino acid results, indicate that major and minor organic
constituents in the Martian meteorites are contaminants.
QY: Jeffrey L. Bada: jbada@ucsd.edu
(Science 16 Jan 98) (ScienceWeek 30 Jan 98)
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm

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4. ORIGIN OF LIFE:
ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS AS PREBIOTIC CHEMICAL REACTORS
     An amphiphile is a molecule that has a polar head attached
to a long hydrocarbon tail. The result is that one part of the
molecule (the polar head) interacts strongly with water, while
the other part of the molecule (the long hydrocarbon tail)
interacts strongly with nonaqueous phases or with the hydrocarbon
tails of neighboring same-species molecules via dispersion forces
(van der Waals forces). Amphiphile molecular systems are usually
self-organizing, the spontaneous organization maximizing all
possible interaction energies, and a "micelle" is a spontaneously
forming colloidal aggregate of amphiphiles, usually in a
spherical arrangement. Such self-organization of amphiphiles may
also occur in a gas phase, with particular parts of molecules
arranged to be in the interior of the micelle, while other parts
are external and exposed to the gas. In general, in any system,
both the existence and detailed structure of micelles depend on
the specific chemical species in the system, the paramount factor
the tendency of molecular aggregates to arrange themselves in a
way that maximizes interaction energies.
     In the first half of the 20th century, when various micellar
systems were first investigated (albeit their detailed molecular
structure was not yet clearly established), both micelles and
larger colloidal aggregates were considered possible protobiotic
structures, primarily for two reasons: 1) the sizes of these
structures are of the same dimensions as biological cells; 2) and
more important, the membranes of all biological cells (i.e., the
barriers that separate the internal cellular contents from the
external environment) are composed mainly of amphiphiles, and
indeed such amphiphiles are evidently absolutely necessary for
biological membranes to exist.
     In general, the term "aerosol" refers to a dispersion in
which a finely divided solid is suspended in air and the
particles are of colloidal dimensions. The term "colloidal
dimensions" refers to the range approximately 1 nanometer to 100
nanometers in diameter.
... ... C.M Dobson et al (5 authors at 3 installations, UK US)
now present a proposal that large populations of aerosols in
micelle form could have been of great importance in the origin of
life on Earth. The authors make the following points:
     1) The authors point out that aerosol particles in the
atmosphere have long been known to scatter sunlight and thus to
have a substantial influence on the temperature of the Earth.
Recent real-time observations of the chemical composition of
individual aerosol particles have shown an unexpected and
remarkably high content of organic molecules, and these
observations can be accounted for by a model involving an
inverted micellar structure in which surfactants form a spherical
monolayer enclosing an aqueous interior. The authors propose that
analogies in size, form, and composition between these aerosols
and single-celled organisms such as bacteria suggest that similar
atmospheric particles could have been the precursors of living
systems on Earth.
     2) The authors suggest that large populations of aerosol
particles would have provided an environment for the
concentration of prebiotic molecular species and for their
chemical transformation through exposure to the fluctuating
fields of humidity, temperature, and sunlight available in the
atmosphere at different altitudes and latitudes. Coagulation and
division of the particles could have resulted in an increased
diversity of molecular species and an early mechanism for
reproduction and replication of successful molecular populations.
     3) The authors point out that it has long been known that
aerosols are formed by wind-driven wave action followed by
bubble-bursting at the ocean surface. Aerosols, therefore, act as
separators that concentrate surfactants, such as long-chain
carboxylic acids, at the air-water interface. There is evidence
that organic molecules partition in laboratory-formed aerosols
such that the more hydrophobic molecules in a mixture tend to
migrate to the outside of the droplets. The authors suggest it is
important to note that aerosol droplets (radii 10^(-7) to 10^(-6)
meters) are different in crucial respects from cloud droplets
(radii 10^(-5) to 10^(-4) meters) and raindrops (radii
approximately 10^(-3) meters). The fractional organic content of
these larger "hydrometeors" is small, is minuscule for
surfactants, and is therefore a significant handicap for their
previously proposed role in the origin of life.
     4) In summary, the authors suggest that atmospheric aerosols
coated with organic surfactant films appear to offer a number of
attractive features as versatile chemical reactors in the
prebiotic production of polymeric molecular species. These
features include their mobility through a wide range of
temperature and radiation fields, their frequent, widespread, and
continual formation, their natural ability to concentrate aqueous
solutions, and their ability to coagulate and divide, thus
sharing contents and information. Atmospheric dispersion by fluid
motion allied to diffusion would ensure that not all aerosols
would share any evolved advantage, so natural selection would not
be inhibited. The natural tendency of aerosols, through the
forces of gravity, aerodynamics, drag, and surface tension is to
be of the same size as terrestrial single-cell organisms. The
authors suggest their model addresses several key issues in the
development of prebiotic chemistry and its conversion to
biochemistry. At least the first steps of the evolution of
monomers in aerosols are testable by experiment, particularly
under light of shorter wavelengths than those cut off by ozone in
the present atmosphere.
-----------
C.M. Dobson: Atmospheric aerosols as prebiotic chemical reactors.
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. US 24 Oct 00 97:11864)
QY: Adrian F. Tuck: tuck@al.noaa.gov
-------------------
Summary by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 10Nov00
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm
-------------------
Related Background:
ORIGIN OF LIFE: PRODUCTION OF PEPTIDES ON INORGANIC SURFACES
The primordial process responsible for the activation of amino
acids and the formation of peptides under primordial conditions
is one of the great riddles of the origin of life. ... ... Huber
and Wachterschauser (Technische Universitat Munchen, DE) now
report that in experiments modeling volcanic or hydrothermal
settings, amino acids were converted into their peptides by use
of coprecipitated (Ni,Fe)S and CO in conjunction with H(sub2)S
(or CH(sub3)SH) as a catalyst and condensation agent at 100
degrees centigrade and pH 7 to 10 under anaerobic aqueous
conditions. The amino acids involved in the experiments were
phenylalanine, tyrosine, and glycine. The authors suggest their
results demonstrate that amino acids can be activated under
geochemically relevant conditions, and that the results support a
thermophilic origin of life with a primordial surface metabolism
on transition metal sulfide minerals. They further suggest that a
continuously recycling library of peptides was generated on the
surfaces of a library of (Fe,Ni)S structures, and that the
results raise the possibility that CO and Ni had a much greater
role in the primordial metabolism than in any of the known extant
metabolisms. They point out that all known extant organisms are
found in habitats with low activities of CO and Ni, and they
suggest this could explain why organisms resorted to the
formation of CO from CO(sub2) and to the elimination of nickel
from many enzymes.
QY: Gunter Wachterschauser, Tal 29, D-80331 Munchen, DE.
(Science 31 Jul 98 281:670) (Science-Week 28 Aug 98)
-------------------
Related Background:
PREBIOTIC ORGANIC COMPOUNDS: OCEANIC PROTECTION FROM SOLAR UV
It is generally believed that the Earth's primitive atmosphere
lacked oxygen, and therefore that an ozone layer protective
against ultraviolet radiation did not exist. This is considered
to be a serious problem for the accumulation of prebiotic organic
compounds on Earth and on Mars, and this problem would have been
worsened by the theoretically expected elevated ultraviolet
radiation production of the early Sun. Protection from
ultraviolet radiation is one of the motivations for proposing an
origin of life in submarine vents, benthic regions, and in deep
subsurface environments. Most attempts to deal with this problem
have involved atmospheric absorbers such as H(sub2)S, SO(sub2),
S(sub8), and organic hazes. ... ... Cleaves and Miller
(University of California San Diego, US) present an analysis of
the problem and report that even in the absence of atmospheric
shielding there would have been sufficient ultraviolet absorbers
in the ocean to allow for the accumulation of organic material.
These absorbers include organic polymers from electric discharges
and hydrogen cyanide polymerizations, solubilized elemental
sulfur, and inorganics such as Cl(-), Br(-), Mg(2+), SH(-),
Fe(2+). Complete ultraviolet protection could also be provided by
a frozen ocean, an oil slick, or large amounts of organic foams.
The authors suggest that oceanic ultraviolet protectors increase
the size of planetary habitable zones and thereby increase the
number of planets on which life may have arisen.
QY: Stanley L. Miller: smiller@ucsd.edu
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. US 23 Jun 98 95:7260)
(Science-Week 17 Jul 98)
-------------------
Related Background:
BIOCHEMICAL EVOLUTION: POLYMERIZATION ON MINERAL SURFACES
J. Smith (University of Chicago, US) proposes a conceptual
framework for consideration of the origins of replicating
biopolymers. Although extended Darwinian natural selection
coupled with Mendel-Watson-Crick genetic inheritance/mutation
provides a plausible framework for integrating the patchy
paleontological record with the increasingly complex biochemical
zoo of the present Earth, the actual chemical beginning of "life"
still poses major challenges. How could the first replicating and
energy-supplying molecules have been assembled from simpler
materials that were undoubtedly available on the early proto-
continents? Catalysis at mineral surfaces might generate
replicating biopolymers from simple chemicals supplied by
meteorites, volcanic gases, and photochemical gas reactions. But
many ideas are implausible in detail because the proposed mineral
surfaces strongly prefer water and other ionic species to organic
ones. The molecular sieve silicalite (Union Carbide; = Al-free
Mobil ZSM-5 zeolite) has a 3-dimensional 10-ring channel system
whose electrically neutral silicon-oxide surface strongly adsorbs
organic species over water, and the ZSM-5 type zeolite mutinaite
has recently been found in Antarctica. The author proposes that
zeolites with similar structures may have existed on the surface
of Earth during its life-origin phase, and that polymer migration
along weathered silicic surfaces of micrometer-wide channels of
feldspars might have led to assembly of replicating catalytic
biomolecules and perhaps primitive cellular organisms. The author
suggests that weakly metamorphosed Archaean rocks might retain
microscopic clues to the proposed mineral adsorbent/catalysts,
and that other frameworks are also possible, including ones with
laevo/dextro one-dimensional channels.
QY: Joseph V. Smith: smith@geol.uchicago.edu
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. US 31 Mar 98 95:3370)
(Science-Week 8 May 98)
-------------------
Related Background:
ORIGIN OF LIFE: THE PRESENT STATUS OF CHEMICAL THEORY
The essential question involved in the origin of what we call
life is how can order arise from disorder? At the present time,
this question is approached on two fronts: 1) study of the
principal features of self-organizing systems, systems in which
order does arise from disorder, systems in which order is indeed
demanded from disorder on thermodynamic grounds; and 2) study of
the detailed chemistry of such systems, the chemistry of
organization and the chemistry of components. In the case of
components, it is essential that appropriate self-organizing
components exist in the first place if they are to become self-
organized, and such candidate components are thus the focus of
much chemical research in this area. In 1953, the chemist Stanley
Miller reported what soon became a famous experiment. To water
under a gas mixture of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen, he added
an electrical discharge. After one week of continuous electrical
discharge, he found that a number of important biological
molecules, including amino acids, had been formed. Miller
proposed his experiment as a model for the conditions under which
the essential compounds necessary for life originated . The
Miller experiment was a watershed, and it began a new era of
experimentation and analysis of possible primordial components.
Coupled with this, were the new important discoveries by
astrophysicists of the presence of organic molecules in the
interstellar medium and in meteorites. In a review of origin of
life theories, P. Radetsky (Univ. of California Santa Cruz, US)
points out that the Miller theory is no longer the consensus
theory, that contemporary geologists believe the primordial
atmosphere consisted primarily of carbon dioxide and nitrogen,
which are less reactive than the gases in the Miller experiment,
and that the field is currently embroiled in controversy fueled
for the most part by an absence of hard fact.
QY: Peter Radetsky, Univ. of California Santa Cruz 408-429-4008
(Earth February 1988) (Science-Week 2 Jan 98)
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

5. HISTORY OF SCIENCE:
BIOLOGISTS AND PHYSICISTS AND NAZI SCIENCE
Fifty-five years after the end of the Nazi regime in Germany
(1933-1945), studies of the active collaboration of a number of
German scientists with the Nazis continue to be a focus of
attention. Perhaps part of the reason for the attention is
puzzlement: These scientists actively collaborated with a
tyrannical regime whose essence was totally opposed to the very
spirit of science. Hitler, in fact, is said to have dismissed
German physics with a wave of his hand and a statement that
Germany could do without physics for a thousand years. What was
in the minds of these scientists when they chose to actively
support the Nazis? Was it an arrogant belief that their expertise
in a science gave them superior insights into the enigmas of
political, social, and economic realities? Such questions will
continue to be pondered by historians, sociologists, and
psychologists. Meanwhile, the contemporary German science
community is struggling to deal with its past. In a new report by
the Max Planck Society (the renamed Kaiser Wilhelm Society), the
following points are made:
     1) Ernst Ruedin, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
for Psychiatry in Munich, and Ernst Fischer and Otmar von
Verschuer, both of whom headed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Anthropology in Berlin during the Nazi era, advised the Nazis at
the highest levels. All three men had direct contact with the
Nazi leadership and served on important government advisory
panels. Ruedin sat on an expert committee to the ministry of the
interior on population and race policies. There is evidence that
Ruedin, whose work to give racial laws a scientific basis was
funded directly from Hitler's office, chaired the committee's
working group on "racial hygiene and racial policies". This panel
set the criteria for the castration of criminals and the forced
sterilization of so-called "inferior women", particularly those
with "psychological" problems. According to the new report,
Ruedin lobbied successfully for ever broader criteria, and on
Ruedin's initiative, the sterilization came to include the
"morally ill" -- the Nazi term for the mentally handicapped. This
category covered 95 percent of the 400,000 sterilizations carried
out between 1933 and 1945. At Ruedin's suggestion, the sterilized
included 600 children of black French soldiers and German women
in the state of Rhineland, which the French occupied after the
First World War. Perhaps the most significant aspect of all of
this is that these policies, which now seem the product of
deranged minds, were not proposed and implemented by a few
mentally deranged political leaders, but were indeed proposed and
implemented by at least part of the German scientific
establishment. Why did this happen? And how can the present
scientific community prevent such a thing happening again?
     2) The new German investigation has so far focused on the
history of four Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, three of which were in
the biological sciences and the fourth the Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute for Metal Research in Stuttgart. The head of the
research group that produced the report, Carola Sachse, according
to the _Nature_ news report, says "it is not known whether Nazi
sympathies were the exception or the rule among scientists."
Then, at the very end of the _Nature_ news article, there appears
a remarkable photograph and caption. The photograph shows a
meeting at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Metal Research in
1935, and in the foreground is the physicist Max Planck (1858-
1947), at that time president of the Kaiser Wilhelm society and
the most illustrious scientist in Germany, Planck seated flanked
by two senior Nazi officials, the Nazis replete with uniforms and
swastika armbands. Max Planck? The caption to the photograph
reads: "Close ties: Max Planck (centre) at the Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute for Metal Research in 1935". The implication of the
caption, in the context of the news report in which it appears,
and in which there is absolutely no mention of Max Planck the
individual, is clearly that Max Planck was an active collaborator
with the Nazis, which is an astounding accusation. (The _Nature_
photograph is credited to "Archiv zur Geschichte der MPG", i.e.,
the archives of the Max Planck Society.) Was the meeting some
official function which Planck, as president of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Society, was obliged to attend? Perhaps so, but there is
no explanation of the photograph beyond the caption. At the time
of the photograph, Max Planck was 77 years old. Two years later,
in 1937, Planck resigned as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm
Society in protest at the Nazi treatment of Jewish scientists. In
1944, Planck's son Erwin was executed by the Nazi's for
participating in the July plot to kill Hitler. Max Planck a Nazi
collaborator? Where is the evidence for that? At the end of the
Second World War, partly in honor of his resistance to the Nazis,
the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was renamed the Max Planck Society and
Max Planck was made its first post-war president. If the Editors
of the journal _Nature_, who we assume are responsible for the
caption, have evidence that Max Planck was indeed a Nazi
collaborator (as is implied by the phrase "close ties" in the
caption), we urge them to immediately publish the evidence.
Otherwise, without such evidence, the caption to the photograph
remains an insidious distortion of truth, particularly insidious
when viewed by people who do not know much about the personal
history of Max Planck, and the appearance of the caption in an
international science journal is a disgrace.
-----------
Nature: Deep roots of Nazi science revealed.
(Nature 19 Oct 00 407:823)
QY: Philip Campbell, Editor: nature@nature.com
-------------------
Summary by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 10Nov00
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm
-------------------
Related Background:
THEORETICAL PHYSICS: ON PASCUAL JORDAN AND NAZI PHYSICS
The individual human brain is an extremely complex natural
system, and the individual human mind, the manifestation of the
dynamics of that system, is at least of an equal order of
complexity and also a domain where paradox is commonplace.
(Ernst) Pascual Jordan (1902-1980) was one of the great
theoretical physicists of this century, the principal architect
of the Born-Heisenberg-Jordan matrix quantum mechanics (see Note
#1 below), the essential inventor of *quantum field theory, and a
20th century tour de force in mathematical physics -- but he was
also an ardent Nazi storm trooper, "complete with brown uniform,
jackboots, and swastika armband..." And if that paradox is not
enough, add to it the fact that Jordan not only defended the
physics of Albert Einstein to the Nazi regime which despised
Einstein because Einstein was a Jew, but also devoted
considerable effort to developing the details of Einstein's
general theory of relativity.
... ... Engelbert L. Schucking (New York University, US),
theoretical physicist and a former student of Pascual Jordan
(beginning in 1952), presents a biographical essay on Jordan,
with Schucking making the following points:
     1) Pascual Jordan was the originator of the quantum theory
of fields, "which we now take to be the basis of all physics." He
was the first to realize that all things in the Universe --
photons, electrons, protons, atoms, and elephants -- are field
quanta. Of the triumvirate Pascual Jordan, *Max Born, and *Werner
Heisenberg that formulated matrix quantum mechanics in 1925,
Jordan was the principal architect of the theory. But in spite of
his revolutionary contributions, Jordan never achieved the
acclaim of his colleagues Heisenberg and *Wolfgang Pauli, perhaps
because Jordan was looked down upon by Pauli and Heisenberg as
more of a mathematician than a physicist.
     2) Schucking points out that Jordan also made the first
formulation of what is now called *Fermi-Dirac statistics. The
story is that in 1925 Max Born, who was then editor of the
_Zeitschrift fur Physik_ was given a paper by Jordan for
publication in the journal. Born put the paper in his briefcase
and then left for the US to give lectures at MIT. Born forgot
about the paper, and when he returned to Germany six months
later, he found the paper at the bottom of the suitcase.
According to Max Born: "It contained what came to be known as the
Fermi-Dirac statistics. In the meantime, it had been discovered
by Enrico Fermi and, independently, by Paul Dirac. But Jordan was
the first."
     3) In May 1933, Jordan joined the Nazi party. But even
before the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Jordan had been a
conservative nationalist, and under the pseudonym "Domeier" he
had published his elitist views in the right-wing journal
_Deutsches Volkstum_ (_German Heritage_). In November 1933,
Jordan joined an SA (Sturmabteilung) unit and became a storm
trooper. He volunteered for the Luftwaffe in 1939, worked mostly
as a meteorologist at airfields, and also at the notorious
Peenemunde rocket center. In 1953, thanks to the intercession of
Wolfgang Pauli, Jordan was "rehabilitated" and advanced from
visiting to full professor at the University of Hamburg.
     4) The Schucking article includes an amusing extract from a
play by *Bertolt Brecht (_Fright and Misery in the Third Reich_)
in which Brecht satirizes Nazi physics in a scene in which two
physicists execute tortuous verbalizations in an attempt to avoid
mentioning the dangerous "E-word" (Einstein). In fact, most
German physicists, when writing about relativity during the Nazi
era, shunned the dangerous E-word. Schucking notes: "A
circumspect Heisenberg managed to avoid it." Jordan, however, did
use Einstein's name when writing about relativity.
     5) Schucking notes that the contributions of Pascual Jordan
are for the most part still widely unknown. "The bulk of the
monumental 1925 Born-Jordan paper 'Zur Quantenmechanik' was
written by Jordan [*Note #1]." It has also been argued that
Jordan's habilitation lecture was crucial for Heisenberg's
discovery of the uncertainty principle. "Even Jordan's pioneering
work in quantum field theory was not immediately appreciated. His
formalism of *creation and annihilation operators, now the basic
language of physics, was still viewed with suspicion by Pauli in
1933." In a seminal paper in 1935, Jordan showed how his
formalism could treat the physics of multiparticle systems -- now
the standard treatment in condensed matter physics -- and
generate the representations that are now used in particle
physics.
     6) In 1979, *Eugene Wigner proposed Jordan for the Nobel
Prize in Physics, but the Swedish Academy awarded the prize that
year to *Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg --
according to Schucking, "three practitioners of the art that
Jordan had invented." Less than a year later, Jordan died at the
age of 78 while filling in formulae in a manuscript at his
kitchen table.
-----------
[Editor's note: The 1997 edition of _Chambers Biographical
Dictionary_ contains a short paragraph on "(Ernst) Pascual Jordan
(1902-  ) German theoretical physicist". Evidently, 17 years
after Jordan's death, the editors of the dictionary were not
aware of it. Several current popular biographical dictionaries of
scientists contain no mention of Pascual Jordan at all. David
Bohm's 1951 textbook _Quantum Theory_ does not mention Jordan at
all. The 1958 4th edition of Paul Dirac's _The Principles of
Quantum Mechanics_ does not mention Jordan at all. Jordan is also
not mentioned anywhere in Richard Feynman's _Lectures on Physics_
(1965). Additional note: Pascual Jordan (1902-1980) should not be
confused with the noted mathematician Camille Jordan (1838-1922).
Camille Jordan was the foremost specialist in algebra of his
time, publishing research in topology, analysis, and particularly
in group theory. The so-called "Jordan curve" in analysis is the
curve of Camille Jordan.]
-----------
Engelbert L. Schucking: Jordan, Pauli, politics, Brecht, and a
variable gravitational constant.
(Physics Today October 1999)
QY: Engelbert L. Schucking, Dept. of Physics, New York
University, US.
-----------
Text Notes:
... ... *quantum field theory: The mathematical fusion of quantum
mechanics with special relativity theory. It is now the overall
theory of fundamental particles and their interactions, with each
type of particle represented by appropriate operators which obey
specific algebraic commutation laws.
... ... *Max Born: (1882-1970) Nobel Prize in Physics 1954. Born
did fundamental work in quantum theory, particularly work linking
the wave function of the electron to electron distribution
probability. It was Born who apparently coined the term "quantum
mechanics". Heisenberg was one of Born's students.
... ... *Werner Heisenberg: (1901-1976) Nobel Prize in Physics
1932. Developed quantum theory (matrix quantum mechanics) and
formulated the uncertainty principle, which concerns matter,
radiation, and their reactions, and which places absolute limits
on the achievable accuracy of measurement of physical phenomena
in the quantum domain.
... ... *Wolfgang Pauli: (1900-1958) Nobel Prize in Physics 1945.
Originated the exclusion principle, which states that in a given
system no two fermions (electrons, protons, neutrons, or other
elementary particles of half-integral spin) can be characterized
by the same set of quantum numbers. He also predicted the
existence of neutrinos.
... ... *Fermi-Dirac statistics: The statistics of an assembly of
identical half-integer spin particles. Such particles satisfy the
Pauli exclusion principle, i.e., no two particles of the same
kind in the system may simultaneously occupy the same quantum
state.
... ... *Bertolt Brecht: (1898-1956) Considered by many to be
Germany's greatest dramatist, Brecht presented his plays as
instruments of sociological analysis. When Hitler came to power
in 1933, Brecht left Germany and in 1941 finally settled in
Hollywood (US). The play in question, _Fright and Misery under
the Third Reich_, is also called _Fear and Loathing under the
Third Reich_ (Furcht und Elend des dritten Reiches, 1945). In
1948, Brecht moved to East Berlin to direct a theater. Always in
conflict with bureaucratic authority, Brecht's years in East
Germany proved difficult for both himself and the East German
government.
... ... *Note #1: What is known as "Heisenberg's matrix
mechanics" (matrix quantum mechanics) is a particular formulation
of quantum mechanics in which the vector aspect of quantum theory
is emphasized, whereas the wave aspects of quantum phenomena play
a secondary role. Although wave quantum mechanics (subsequently
developed by Schroedinger, see below) and matrix quantum
mechanics appear superficially to be very different, the two
theories are in fact completely equivalent and lead to the same
physical predictions. Werner Heisenberg's first paper on the
subject appeared in 1925, and in this paper matrix theory is not
mentioned explicitly because Heisenberg did not realize yet that
his mathematical operations had a matrix theory interpretation.
The connection with matrix theory was demonstrated the same year
in the already mentioned important paper by Max Born and Pascual
Jordan (Z. fur Physik 1925 34:858). In a second paper a short
time later, Born and Jordan and Heisenberg all published together
and clarified the principles of matrix quantum mechanics (Z. fur
Physik 1926 35:557). The wave quantum mechanics of Erwin
Schroedinger was not published until 1926 (Annalen der Physik
1926 79:361), so that historically matrix mechanics was invented
and developed before Schroedinger invented wave mechanics. Given
wave mechanics, the invention of matrix mechanics might be viewed
as inevitable, since the set of all solutions of a linear
differential equation can be regarded as a vector space. The fact
that matrix mechanics was invented _without_ wave mechanics is
considered by some physicists to be an astounding theoretical
accomplishment.
... ... *creation and annihilation operators: These are quantum
mechanical operators which increase or reduce, respectively, the
occupation of a single quantum state by one. For example, an
annihilation operator applied to a state of one particle yields
the vacuum. In this context, "operators" are abstract
representations of certain specific mathematical operations, and
consideration of the various algebras of such operators has
proved to be of immense importance in theoretical physics.
... ... *Eugene Wigner: (1902-1995) He introduced the idea of
parity, or symmetry theory, into nuclear physics. He shared the
1963 Nobel Prize for Physics with Maria Goeppert-Mayer
(1906-1972) and Hans Jensen (1907-1973).
... ... *Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg:
Shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for the unified theory of
weak and electromagnetic fundamental forces, and for the
prediction of the existence of the weak neutral current. Abdus
Salam (1926-1996).
-------------------
Summary & Notes by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 19Nov99
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

6. HISTORY OF BIOLOGY: ON VITALISM
     The roots of what is called "vitalism", the idea that living
things possess a mysterious force or property that differentiates
them from non-living things, can probably be traced back to
Aristotle and beyond. But the modern origin is perhaps the
proposal by the chemist J.J. Berzelius (1779-1848) in 1807 that
chemical substances be divided into "organic" and "inorganic",
with organic substances those that are the products of organisms
and inorganic substances those characteristic of the inanimate
world. This, of course, is not the distinction between these
terms today, but in the early 19th century, Berzelius and many
other chemists believed that organic substances could be produced
_only_ by living systems, the limitation due to a special
mysterious vital property of living systems. This idea of the
unique production of organic substances by living systems, the
idea of "chemical vitalism", was demolished experimentally by
Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882), who in 1828 synthesized urea from
ammonium cyanate [*Note #1].
     The notion of chemical vitalism persisted for a few decades,
in large part due to support by Berzelius, but by the 1850s most
chemists had abandoned the idea. However, a related vitalism,
"biological vitalism", continued well into the early 20th century
in various forms, some researchers with a focus on biological
cells, other researchers with a focus on complex higher organisms
and their functions, and still other biologists with a focus on
embryological development.
     Concerning vitalism in cell biology, its persistence is
perhaps easily explained by a simple little experiment: We
consider a single-celled microscopic organism, a primitive living
entity, let us say a relatively non-motile protozoan, in an
aqueous solution. The aqueous solution containing the organism
fills a small chamber, and we observe the organism with a
microscope. Into the chamber we introduce two glass micro-
needles, and manipulating these micro-needles, we carefully tear
the surface of the cell until the interior contents burst into
the surrounding solution. We have destroyed the organism and are
left with its parts in the chamber, a trivial conclusion,
although not trivial for the protozoan. What is also not trivial
is that although all the contents of that once-living organism
are still in that chamber, there is no possible way presently
known to science to reconstitute that organism from its parts as
a "living" entity. It will not happen spontaneously, and there is
no way known to us that we can accomplish it.
     In the latter half of the 19th century, and well into the
20th century, many biologists, observing the life and death of
living systems, and ignorant of modern ideas concerning molecular
biology and irreversible processes and metastable states and the
dynamics of self-organizing ensembles, believed that living cells
and living organisms composed of such cells possessed a vital
force of some kind that was responsible for "life". Today, on the
contrary, nearly all biologists believe this is not the case, and
that a mature living cell (and a living organism composed of such
cells) is a result of programmed serial organization, with each
step in organization (development) dependent on the previous
steps, so that if at any stage, or at the final stage, the
organism is destroyed, it will not spontaneously be
reconstituted, and we cannot in practice reconstitute the
organism by any direct or indirect means, since what must be
reconstituted is a culminating organization based on a serial
organization, the serial organization the cascade of specific
sequential organizations that led to the stage at which the
organism was destroyed. The current view, therefore, at least
among most biologists, is that a "living system" is a special
arrangement of non-living material, that the arrangement and
material obey the laws of physics and chemistry, and that no
special "vital force" exists in living things. This view was most
succinctly stated by the Nobel laureate biologist Jacques Lucien
Monod (1910-1976): "There are living systems, there is no `living
matter'."
... ... Sunetra Gupta (University of Oxford, UK) presents an
essay on Berzelius and vitalism, the author making the following
points:
     1) The author suggests that vitalism's singular place in
history rests on its attempt to reconcile two opposing needs --
the need for analytical reasoning and the need to celebrate the
mystery of human experience. The life of the Swedish chemist Jon
Jacob Berzelius traced the tensions between these concerns in
dramatic detail.
     2) After Wohler's demonstration in 1828 that urea could be
synthesized from ammonium cyanate, Berzelius maintained a
dignified silence on the question of vitalism, leaving doubt
concerning what the discovery meant to him personally. During
Berzelius' long life in chemistry, he vacillated between
positions clearly supportive of a mystical vitalist force and
others more appropriate to an atheistic materialism, which
Berzelius generally abhorred. It appears that much of the
energies of Berzelius as a chemist were engaged in an honest
negotiation of a compromise between these two poles.
     3) Berzelius, in his final analysis, acknowledged that the
notion of a vital force as distinct from normal inorganic forces
was invalid. Instead, he proposed that organisms were to be
distinguished by a mysterious arrangement of "circumstances"
dictated by the divine purpose of producing life. By the early
20th century, the focus of vitalism had shifted to another set of
circumstances, the development of an organism. Known as
"entelechy", the concept that a vital force accounts not only for
the maintenance of life but also for its development was used by
the vitalist Hans Driesch (1867-1941) to explain the apparently
astonishing process of embryonic differentiation.
     4) The author (Gupta) concludes: "We now have a 'working
draft' of the human genome and still the engineers of such a feat
are anxious to emphasize 'the imponderables of the human spirit'.
It seems that we are still -- perhaps happily so -- trapped in a
state of poetic ambivalence towards the question of whether life
is greater than the sum of its parts. Like Berzelius, we remain
inclined to believe that the analysis of life does not detract
from its ultimate mystery."
-----------
Sunetra Gupta: A victim of truth.
(Nature 12 Oct 00 407:677)
QY: Sunetra Gupta, Dept. of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK.
-----------
Text Notes:
... ... *Note #1: J.J. Berzelius (1779-1848) was perhaps the most
prominent chemist of the first half of the 19th century. First
trained as a physician, Berzelius accurately determined more than
2000 relative atomic and molecular masses; devised the system of
chemical symbols and formulae now in use; proposed oxygen as a
reference standard for atomic masses; discovered the elements
cerium, selenium, and thorium; was the first to prepare silicon
in an amorphous form; was the first to isolate zirconium; coined
the words "isomerism", "allotropy", and "protein"; coined the
term "halogens" to describe the group chlorine, bromine, and
iodine; was the first to postulate the existence of catalysts.
His _Textbook of Chemistry_ (1803), published when he was 24
years of age, came to be accepted as the definitive work of his
time. Reaching a senior age, Berzelius stated: "God knows what
happens to your time once you have begun to get old. You are busy
all the time, you do important things, you work, and yet when you
sum it all up the result is nothing."
-------------------
Summary & Notes by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 10Nov00
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm
-------------------
Related Background:
IN FOCUS: HISTORY OF BIOLOGY: ON 19TH CENTURY VITALISM
"The term 'vitalism' can be applied in one form or another to the
thinking of the majority of the scientists concerned with any
biological subject during most of the nineteenth century.
However, this does not mean that all held the same theory. Rather
it signifies that sooner or later each scientist reached a level
of speculation as to the mechanisms of the living organism at
which he could no longer explain these mechanisms with the facts
at his disposal. The point at which this level was reached
differed in individual cases, but the fact seemingly could not be
denied that there was a distinction between the inorganic and the
organic worlds; the unorganized and the organized as the
distinction was often expressed. After the popularization of the
idea of a vital force by Barthez (1734-1806), the term came to
cover a multitude of concepts. To some it represented an actual
substance characteristic of life, to others it was a force which
operated on the inorganic elements to give them unique properties
when it acted. Probably the best statement of the general
situation was the remark of Berzelius (1779-1848): 'We make use
of a _word_ to which we can affix no idea.'... After Liebig
(1803-1873), the structural theory of organic chemistry made
possible the synthesis of thousands of new compounds and an
understanding of mechanisms of their reactions. Chemists no
longer saw the need for a vital force. The German school of
physiologists, Temkin's 'mechanical materialists', discarded
vitalism completely and turned to the rapidly advancing science
of physics for an explanation of vital mechanisms. For them man
became 'but a passing constellation of lifeless particles of
matter.' It cannot be said that vitalism was completely
extinguished. Even in the twentieth century Hans Driesch (1867-
1941) continued to insist that the function of protoplasm could
not be explained mechanically. However, with the accumulating
mass of chemical and physiological information, vitalism did
gradually disappear from biological thought."
-----------
Henry M. Leicester: _Development of Biochemical Concepts from
Ancient to Modern Times_
(Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1974, p.150,159)
-------------------
SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 3Dec99
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm

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7. IN FOCUS:
PHYSICS, MECHANICS, AND PHILOSOPHICAL PREDILECTIONS
"Today, in the middle of the 20th century, three systems of
mechanics are simultaneously in use: the classical, tracing its
origin to Newton and now 270 years old; quantum mechanics, which
dates from about 1925; and the theories of special and general
relativity propounded by Einstein in 1905 and in 1916
respectively... In whichever of the three systems of mechanics a
student's interest may lie, he must inevitably at some point come
to grips with philosophical problems and be forced to answer as
best he can such questions as: 'What is the nature of scientific
knowledge? Are its conclusions certain and absolute fragments of
a final truth, or are they inevitably temporary and evanescent
constructs? An individual scientist may perhaps believe that he
pursues his work without considering philosophical questions of
this kind, but this belief is illusory, and arises simply because
the scientist has unconsciously acquired some particular
metaphysical outlook. Specific answers to philosophical questions
are thus unconsciously supplied, the scientist regarding them as
obvious and as incapable of being other than he has stated them
to be. Though this philosophical method may lead to much self-
confidence, it has its disadvantages, one of which will probably
be that every new theory of mechanics takes on the appearance of
a "revolution in physics" though it is merely the scientists's
philosophical prejudices, and not physics, that are being
revolutionized. A more satisfactory outlook can be achieved by
examining our customary modes of thought until we become aware of
our own philosophical predilections. Whether these turn out to be
profound or superficial is, in a sense, of minor consequence; the
essence of the matter is that we should be aware of holding
them."
-----------
G.C. McVittie: _General Relativity and Cosmology_
University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1962, pp.1,3
-------------------
SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 10Nov00
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm

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8. FROM THE SCIENCEWEEK ARCHIVE:
ON THE IMPACT OF SOCIETY ON SCIENCE
*Sydney Brenner presents an essay on current interactions between
science and society at large, the author making the following
points: 1) Evidence for the impact of science on society is
ubiquitous, and little more remains to be said about it. Science
and the technologies it has spawned form the basis of all human
activity, including housing, food, transportation, and the
electronic gadgetry used for information and entertainment. 2)
But when we speak of the impact of science on society, we are
speaking about the more advanced countries, and when we speculate
on the future, it usually concerns those areas of the world. The
underdeveloped world remains outside the arena of progress, with
famines and pointless wars still exacting a terrible toll of
human lives. 3) Like the evidence for the impact of science on
society, the impact of society on science is also ubiquitous,
mainly in the form of the large (but never sufficient) funding
that science enjoys in the more advanced countries. But in
stimulating and supporting science, society, as the paymaster,
has taken a much shorter term view of research than most
scientists would like. 4) The answer to the question of which
type of science to fund is actually quite simple: Since all
science is problem driven, it should be judged by the quality of
the problems posed, and the quality of the solutions provided.
5) The increased funding for scientific research in recent years,
especially in the health fields, has resulted in a great
expansion of the number of scientists, and thus an increased
competition for academic and research funds. We have established
an elaborate system of peer review for funding and a similar
process for publication of scientific results, and all of this
has subtle consequences for the scientific enterprise. If you
know what sort of research is wanted by a committee, you write
your grant to satisfy these expectations, and if you know what
the oligarchy believes is the correct view of a subject, you give
your paper that slant. Further, it is only through the use of
subterfuge such as applying for money for work already done that
innovative research can be freely pursued. 6) These matters must
be taken seriously, otherwise science will lose the independence
of thought required for innovation that it has cherished for
centuries.
-----------
Sydney Brenner (Molecular Sciences Institute Berkeley, US)
The impact of society on science.
(Science 20 Nov 98 282:1411)
QY: Sydney Brenner, Molecular Sciences Institute Inc., 2168
Shattuck Avenue, Berekeley, CA 94704 US.
-----------
Text Notes:
... ... *Sydney Brenner: The author is one of the pioneers of
genetic engineering, and the discover of *messenger RNA. He is
also responsible for instigating and promoting much of the modern
work on the molecular genetics of the *nematode worm C. elegans.
... ... *messenger RNA: (mRNA) The ribonucleic acid molecule
transcribed from DNA that carries the coded information
specifying the sequence of amino acids in a protein.
... ... *nematode worm C. elegans: A nematode worm is an abundant
and ubiquitous phylum of unsegmented roundworms. Caenorhabditis
elegans is a small (1 mm) nematode. It is transparent,
hermaphroditic, free-living, and found in soil. It has a
relatively small genome (approximately 19,000 genes), and only a
few types of cells in its body. It has a 16-hr embryogenesis that
can be achieved in a petri dish, and is thus highly suitable for
the study of developmental and behavioral genetics.
-------------------
Summary & Notes by SCIENCE-WEEK http://scienceweek.com 11Dec98
For more information: http://scienceweek.com/swfr.htm


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