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VoL 174, No. 4005 Race and Academic Hiring: 1. 1. Singh; L R. Preer; L L. Horowitz; A. Etzioni;. Margin of Safety: R. D. Hamilton; L. S. tturley and H. Swenerton; Committee on Chemotaxonomy: IT'. F. Grant and T. Swain .................. '101 EDITORIAL ARTICLES NEWS AND CO[~MENT BOOK REVIEWS • " REPORTS The Evaluation of Basic Science: D. Stetten, Jr .............................. 105 Plate Tectonics in Geologic History: W. R. Dickinso, ......................... • 107 • Protein Methylation: W. K. Paik and S. Kim .................................. 114 Toward the Reduction of Unwanted Pregnancy: F. S. laffe ..................... 119 Cahcer Politics: NIH Backers Mount Late Defense in House .................. 127 Soviet-American Conference Urges Search for Other Worlds .................... 1so Black Lung: Dispute about Diagnosis of Miners' Ailment ...................... '122 Outstanding Science Library to Close ........................................ '123 Minimal Brain Dysfunction in Children, reviewed by Y. E. Twitchell; other reviews by E. Clark, 1. Rosinski; Books Received ...................... Caribbean Eocene Volcanism and the Extent of Horizon A: P. H. Mattson and E. /1. Pessagno, lr. ................................................... ~.-Asparaginase Induced Immunosuppression: Inhibition of Bone Marrow Derived Antibody Precursor Cells: H. FHedman .......................... '128 129 BOARD OF DIRECTORS VICE PRESIDENTS AND SECTION SECRETARIES D',VI,?,I O~S ATHELSTAN SPILHAUS Retiring P~esident, Chairman MATItEMATICS (A) Henry 0. Pollak F. A. Ficken PSYCHOLOGY (I) James E. Deese Wdllam D. gaevey PHARMACEUTiC,=,L SCIE,~CES Wallace L. John Autian ~ DIVISION Pzes;dent Execulive MIRA REES GLENN T. SEABORG President P~eslden(-Eleet PHYSICS (B) CRF..MISTRY (C) Gaylord P. Harnweq Cha.'ies C. Price Albert M. Stone Leo Schubert SOCIAL AND ECOROMIC SCIENCES (it) Daniel P. Moyn,han Harvey AGRICULTUR.r (0) Malt'da.~ Sicily Mich~',el A. Fazzell PACIFIC DIVISION George E. Lindsay Robezt C. M.=Zler Presi,'l=nt Secretary DAVIO BLACKWEI.L LEWIS M. BRANSCOt.°B RICHARD H. BOLT BARRY COMMO~NLR ASTRONOMY (O) Laurence W. Fre~rick Ado U. Lee.dolt HISTORY Ai'~D PHILOSOPHY OF 3CIENCL tL2 Cyril Smith Raymond J. Seege~" IPtDUSrRIAL SCIENCE (P~ EDUCATION (Q) Burton Y. Dean J. D-~vid Lockard Jordan P. Lew;:, Phillip R. fordyc~ $OUTHWESTERR AND ROCKY ~",OURTAiH DIVISIO!; J~;hn R, Lather Marlowe G And.~rson President Executive SecreLlry SCIENCE is pubii~.~ett wecldlt, except t.be last w,ct in December. but w~tl= an ~t,a issue ee the third Tuesday m ho~ember, by the P~eciczn A~s~Jation f~r th~ Adva~ement o: T107390388

AMERICAN ASSOCIATlrON FOR THE ADUANCEMENT OF SCIENCE Kidney: Primary Source of Plasminogen after Acute Depletion in the Cat: R. F. High~rnlth and D. L. Kline ........................................ .Cyclic Adenosine 3',5'-Monophosphate during Glucose Repression in the . Rat Liver: O. Sudilovsky et al ......................................... Diethylamide of Thujic Acid: A Potent Repellent of ~ledes aegypti: V. Hach and E. C. McDonald .......................................... Binding of DDT to Lecithin: 1..I. Tinsley, R. Haque, D. Schmedding ............. Xeroderma Pigmentosum: A Rapid Sensitive Method for Prenatal Diagnosis: .t.D. Regan et al ..................................................... Amino Acid Composi.tion of Proteins as a Product of Molecular Evolution: T. Ohm and M. Kiraura ............................................... Iron- and giboflavin-Dependent Metabolism of a Monoamine in the Rat in vivo: A. L. Symes, K. Missals, T. L. Sourkes .................................. Murine-Leukemia Virus: High-Frequency Activation in vitro by 5-Iododeoxyuridine and 5-Bromodeoxyuridine: D. R. Lowy et al ............. Induction of Murine C-Type Viruses from Clonal Lines of Virus-Fre~ BALB/3T3 Cells: S, A. Aaronson, G. 1. Todaro, E. M. Scolnick ........................ Chemosterilaat Action of Anthramyein: A Proposed Mechanism: S. B. Horwitz et al.. S~nehrony and Flash Entrainment in a New Guinea Firefly: F. E. Hanson et al ...... • Hemispheric Asymmetry of Electrocortical Responses to Speech Stimuli: L. K. Morrell and .t. G. Salamy ......................................... 144- 14-5 147 159 "161 A~SOCIATION AFFAIRS Comparative Immunology of the Oral Cavity: H." W. Scherp; The Information- Conscious Society; E. Garfield; Alternative Approaches to National Delivery of Health Care: G. K. Chacko .................................. t67 MEB'rlNOII Extending Symbiotic NRrogen Fixation to Increase Man's Food Supply: D. A. Phillips, I. G. Torrey, R. H. Burris; Forthcoming Events ............... "16o " C~,RYL P. HASKINS PHYLLIS V. PARKINS LEONARD M. RIESER KEI~NETH V. THIMA~IN • GEOLOGY Arid GEOGRAPHY (El Ellis L. Yochelson Willilm E. Benson ENGIHEERING Newman A. Hall Raynor L Duncombe INFORMATIOH AND COMMUNICATION (T) FAwird L. Brady Scott Adams BIOLOGI C.~,L SCIENCES George SpmgeL Jr. Richard J. Goss MEDICAL SCIENCES (~1) OeorRe B. Koelle F. Douglas Lawrason STATISTICS (U) Elizabeth Scott Ezr= Galser WILLIAM T, GOLDEN WILLIAM BEYAH COVBR Treasurer Executive Officer ANTHROPOLOGY (H) Ward Oo~dunouEh Anthony Leeds DEHTISTRY (Nd) Henry W. $cherp Sholom Pearlman ATMOSPHERIC AND HYDROSPHERIC SCIENCES OH) Thomas F. Malone Louis J. Bsttan 1874. Rs ~ are to f=~ ~e w~k el ~ie~i~s. te [a~litate ~:tien z~t them. Reconstruction of the jaws o[ the giant fossil shark, Carcharodon megalodon. Persons in the photo were preparators in the Department of Vertebrate Pale- ontology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, in 1909. Back row (left to right): C. Falkenbach, Charles tang, W. Cortes, and George Olsen. Front row (left to right): Otto Falkenbach and Fred Kessler. See review of The tile o/ Sharks, page 136. [Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History] T107390389

c~nven~e~.ce~ these schedule~ have ~en a~ ~ by rofe~n~ to ~e single income ~o~ f~ a n~ f~ily of fo~. Jn ~s a~le, theorem, "n~r-~o~ refe~ ~ ~ f~i~ f~ling below the ne~-poverty k~cl (~tc~d in 19~ on ~ ~n~me of ~345 for a ~fa~ fa~ly of four), while "poor'" ~fe~ ~ ~ose fam~i~ that f~l ~low the ~y keel (~ntered in ~966 on an ~ ~3~ for a n~fa~ family of four). ~¢ ~ u~mc" is ~ to include ~r ~d near-~or. In addition to the~ stan- ds, ~re is the con~pt of "medical indi- ~ the te~ ~ed to describe those ~ ~d ~dtv]duals who c~not afford p~vate ~[c~ care. ~cially formulated medical digcn~ ~t~dards estab~sh eligibility for H~y ~ced medical c~e ~d yaw ~dely from sta~ to state. In most states, the levels a~ qui~ low and are based on a concept of p~g mainly for treatment of major itl~ ~es. In ~c ab~nce of a national standard ~ m~ indJgency, and panlculariy of one ~ ~d accurately define those who are ~rred by lack of in.me f~m purch~ing ~ elc~, preventive health ~icc suc~ ~ f~lY play.g, there ap~a~ Zo be little ~oi~ but to adopt the Soc[~l Scarify Ad- ~st~n's near-pove~y level to define ~t ~dJ~ncy, although many healt~ workers ~gard H ~ too low to ~dentify ~ ~ c~not ~ord private ~dJcal care. 6. H. Foeman ~d L ~uwe, ~cta Psychiat. 7. P. K. ~clpton, A. A. Campbell, ~. E. Patter- ~, Fe~[li~ ~d Family P~nlng In the ~nlted States (Princeton University Press, Pfln~m. NJ~ 1966). 8. R. Freedman, P. K. Whelpton, A. A. Camp.- bell, Famffy Planning, SteriliOr and Popula- tion Growth IMcGraw-Hi]l. New York, 1959). 9. N. B. Ryder and C__ F. Westoff, Popularlan Research O'he Center for Population Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Washington. D.C., 1969). 10. U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, ~Veed [or &lb,'tdized Family Planning Service:;: United ~rarer. Each Stoze and Counr~,, 1968 (Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C., 1969). IL J. Dryfoos. F. S. Jaffe, D. R. Weintraub, J. P. Cobb, C. ft. Bernsohn, Faro. Plmm. Perspect. 3, 29 (April 1971). 12. N. n. Ryder and C. F. Westoff, Demography 6. 435 (1969). 13. A. A. Campbell, d. Marriage Faro. 30. 236 (May 1968). 14. Derived from M. Orshansky [See. Security Ball. (March 1968), table 4, I~. 3]. I$. O. Harkavy and J. Maier, Faro. Plann. Per- spect. 3, 15 (July 197I). 16. "Population research: a prospectus" (repo~ to the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs, Department o[ Health, Education, and Welfare, 25 October 1969) [in U.S. tlouse of Representatives, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Hearings on Family Planning Services (91st Congr. 2nd sess., 1970). p. 175]. 17. C. F. Muller, Fanr. Plonn. Perspect. 2, 12 (October 1970). |g. J. L Rosoff, ibid. 3, 50 ($uly 1971). 19. W, Schramm, Rep. PopuL/Fam. Plann. No. 7 (April 1971), p. 1. 20. PopuL Bull. 26, 3 (1971). 21. J. I. Goodlad, School Curriculum Re/arm In the United Statex O=und for the of Education, New York, 19~). ~ U~. ~pa~nt of Health. ~u~on. Welfare. Men. ~iral 5ta~. Rep. (SuppL) 12 (1970). ~. H. F. PII~I ~d N. F. We~ler, Faro. Plan. Perxpe~. 3, 37 (July 1~1). 24. U~. ~pan~nt o[ Health, EducaUon, and Welfare, Se~,lcex to AFDC Familiex~Firxt Annual Report (Govem~nt P~fing W~h~gton, D.C., 1970). ~. ~]e, 8 Janua~ 1971, p. 22. 26. New York Times, 15 Janua~ 1971, p. 15. 27. L. A. Wcstoff ~d C. F. W~toff, From Now to Zeta (Little, Bro~. Boston, 1971), p. 69, 28. C. F. Wcslo~ and N. B. Rydec, Reproduction in the United States: 2965, in pre~. 29, ~timat~ of potenUal users of contraception among the non.or are b~ed on lhe pr~ durcs and ~sumptions employed by Campbell (13, p. 240). He deducts from ~c total the age group lho~ women who are not ex- ~sed to ri~k of p~gnan~, who a~ steele, and who a~ pregnant or seek~g prcgn~. For the poor and nea~-p~r, C~pbell arrives at an estimate of 4.6 million. ~ D~foos- Polgar-Varky formula, which ~ baslc~ly similar to Campbell's but differs on some sumptinns, es~mates ~ac 5.3 milfion women among the poor and near-Poor need sldized fa~ly pl~nlng so.ices. ~e figure used in the table for poor and near-pone averages out ~h¢ ~wo estimates, 30, "Ex~ss fertility," follow~g the ~nccpt em- ployed in ~he 1965 National Fertility Study, the medium e~timate of births tha~ were wanted at conception by either one or both parents. NEWS AND COMMENT Cancer Politics: NIH Backers Mount-Late Defense in House by the then chairman of the Senate health subcommittee, Ralph W. Yar- borough (D-Tex.). Stimulus for setting up the panel came from the New York millionalress and philanthropist Mary Lasker, the surviving, fully active mem- ber of the remarkable quartet that or- chestrated the growth of the NIH's budget from $2.5 million in 1945 to nearly $1.5 billion by the late 1960's. Her chief partners in this enterprise The tussle to wrest control of cancer remove the National Cancer Institute were the late Representative John E. research away from the National Insti- from NIH and establish a NASA-like Fogarty of Rhode Island and former lutes of Health has moved from the agenc i con" r Senator Lister Hill of Alabama, chair- Senate to the lobbies and com.m.ittee ~ke"th~same way the m~x)n ~as c~en of the appropriations subcommit- rooms of the ..House. In July, a billAg" ~entific body, apart te~i in the House and Senate that deal set up the National Cancer Institut • (as from the American Cancer Soci-ety, wit~ the NIH budget. The fourth mere- an agency wrtually independent of~he supports the proposal, and numerous or- bel/of the team was James Shannon., NIH swept through the Senate ~tionalA.cademy .~.'. ecto.r of the. NIH from I955 until "/9 to 1 vote,, and seemed assured of an ~~_rd h_ave sp%ken.~ma~his rettrement m 1968. equally decisive victor in the House. a ainst 1 " y e. against i~g~'tl-~ancer Although Mrs. Lasker and Shannon The tide was abruptly stemmed last legislation last month, Rogers displayed worked in concert to increase congres- ~onth when Representative Paul G. Rogers (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Health and the Environment, introduced a counterbill cosponsored by a majority of his subcommittee. Whatever compro- mi~ emerges in the next few weeks be- tween the Rogers bill and that passed by the Senate may radically affect the long-term future of biomedical research, insofar as the progress of science is subject to administrative influences. Few issues have so united the bio- medical community as the proposal to $ OC'I"OBF~ 1971 a 3.inch stack of letters he had received from scientists and scientific organiza- tions protesting the bill passed by the Senate. The mobilization of scientific opinion came too late to influence the course of events in the Senate, and it may be too small to prevail in the House against the ill-assorted but powerful alliance backing the Senate-passed bill. The first public surfacing of the pro- posal for a separate cancer agency was a report produced last November by the National Panel of Consultants on the Conquest of Cancer, a group appointed sional appropriations for health re- search each year, they frequently dis- agreed over the direction of research, Mrs. Lasker and her allies tending to emphasize applied over basic research and the need to translate research suits into methods of treating patients. In particular, as a member of the National Advisory Cancer Cotmeil, which reviews the grant programs of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Mrs. Lasker used to argue for larger budgets for cancer research than Shannon thought could usefully be spent. 127 T!07390390

The report of the Senate Panel of t2onsulta~ts represents a continuation of these arguments outside the forum of the NfH. The ,panel was cochaired by a long-tlme colleague of Mrs. Lasker, Sidney Farber of the Boston Children's Cancer Research Foundation, and Mrs. Lasker helped Senators Yarborough and Jacob J. Javits (R-N.Y.) pick the panel members. A former staff member of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee has been quoted as saying that members were chosen on the basis of their national reputation in cancer research or philanthropy, since "this was a PR operation as much as anything," Although the scientific portion of the panel's report--by far its major com- ponent-won, general praise, its chief recommendation, in favor of an inde- pendent cancer agency outside NIH, was to some extent blunted in impact by having been predicted. In asking the~ Briefing Two Cultures Note The summer schedule of the director of the National Institute of Neurologi- cal Diseases ~nd Stroke (blINDS) has drawn critical notice on Capitol Hill and has prompted a review of the use of government time and money by Na- tional Institutes of Health (NIH) scien- tists and administrators. A wire service story last week related that, s~nce he came to NINDS as direc- tor in 1968, Edward F. MacNichol, Jr., has spent 2 monlhs each summer at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and letted $25-a-day government per diem payments during the time he was there. The issue was raised in an anony- mous letter sent to, among others, NIH director Robert Q. Marston and Rep- resentative L. H. Fountain chalrmon of the House Government Operations Committee's subcommittee on intergovernmental relations and a frequent critic of NIH management. At Fountain's request, General Accounting Office (GAO) staff members assigned to NIH were asked to check relevant travel records. GAO attention has apparently fo- cused on the per diem payments, and MacNichol announced last Thursday Senate for funds to set the panel up in March I970, Senator Yarborough said the panel should direct particular at- tention "toward the creation of a new administrative agency which would guarantee that the conquest of cancer becomes a highly visible national goal." The panel's recommendation was the basis of the Senate bill introduced in January this year and passed essentially unchanged in July. An important, may- be crucial, factor in the Laskerites' vic- tory was the defeat of Senator Yar- borough last year and his replacement as chairman of the health subcommittee by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D- Mass.), regarded in the White l-louse as a serious contender for next year's presidential election. The Administra- tion at first firmly opposed the Ken- nedy-Lasker bill (known as S. 34)/ By way of countermeasure, President Nixon in his State of the Union message that he had decided to place in escrow the total amount of the per diem pay- ments pending review of the matter. The incident occurs at an awkward moment for NIH since the question of whether the big new cancer research program will be administered by or by a separate agency is under de- bate and should be settled before Con* Cress adjourns (see story above). MacNichol's own reactions are set forth in detail in a letter addressed "To My Unknown Critic" and mode avail- able by NIH. In the letter he points out that "for many years it has been cus- to.mary for some intramural scientists arid extramural grantees to come to Woods Hole for summer research. There is nothing illegal or immoral about lhis, and it has some important scientific advantages that the leadership of NIH has long felt far outweigh the extra cost." He notes that fresh experi- mental material of special use in his own work is available at Woods Hole, and that the concentration of Ameri- can and foreign scientists at Woods Ho]e in the summer provides oppor- tunities for collaboration and exchange of ideas. MacNichol, who had spent five sum- mers working at the Marine Biological /.aboratory at Woods Hole before he assumed the NINDS directorship, says in the letter that his "participation in summer research was thoroughly dis- in January asked for an additional $100 million to be appropriated for the NCI (even though last year the Admin- istration asked the Senate appropria- tions subcommittee to cut the NCI budget by $20 million). The President's science adviser, Edward E. David, urged in a speech in February that the cancer effort remain within the NIH, adducing the argument--since repeated by a train of scientific spokesmen--that it would be a mistake to isolate cancer research from the mainstream of the life sciences. After these initiatives, the Adminis- tration rested its lance in the belief that the threat from the Kennedy bill had been headed off. Kennedy held 2 days of hearings in March, at which the members of the Senate panel and the American Cancer Society testified in favor of S. 34 and a preponderance of witnesses from the biomedical cam- cussed" with the then NIH director James A. Shannon and his staff at the tlme he was interviewed for the NINDS directorship. MacNichol writes, "They approved and indeed encouraged me to continue to do research and to con- tlnue to come to Woods Hole." Mac- Nichols was a professor of biophysics at Johns Hopkins before ioln|ng blINDS. Shannon, who retired in 1968, told Associated Press reporter G. C. Thelen, who wrote the original story, that he remembered no discussion of a Cape Cod office. Shannon said that "in gen- eral I do not thlnk it advisable" for an institute director to admln~ster his insti- tute from a distance, but that he could "think of the right constellation of fac- tors that would make it possible." There is apparently no documenta- tion of the arrangement in NIH files, and an exchange of correspondence between Shannon and current NIH di- rector Marston is said to be aimed at clarifying the matter. Martson was out of Bethesda on institute business when this was wrilten and was not available for comment. He has, however, de- fended MacNiehol's work at Woods Hole as important to NIH. At the same time, Marston has said that he is re- viewin~ "off-campus" work by the ten institute directors and other NIH o~- cials. Sources at NIH say that Mnrston is expected to set up o committee to review standards that apply to trove| ~CIENCE. ~'OL. 174 T!07390391

reunify testified against it, Lnduding representatives of the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Ameri- can Hospital Association, the Federa- tion of American Societies for Experi- mental BioIogy, and the American Medical Association. In a letter to Ken- nedy, Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote that those responsible for the proposed National Cancer Authority "will find it necessary to reinvent virtually ali of t.he National Institutes of Health within the Authority," if it is to succeed in its mission. Until April, there were too few votes in the Senate health subcommittee to report the Kennedy-Lasker bill out, a situation that seems to have changed abruptly early in May. On May 11, the morning that the subcommittee was to meet in executive session to mark up .the bill, the White House belatedly and scientific work away from Bethesda by sclentlsts and science administrators. There seems to be no question about MacNIchol's scientific standing. His spe- cial field is the neurophysiology of vi- sion, and detached observers say he has done first-rate fundamental work in the biophysics of color vision. He came to HINDS as director apparently under the proviso that he would also direct his own lab at the institute. During the s-Jmmers, two professionals who work in the Bethesda lab go to Woods Hole. MacNichol spends much of the summer catching up on the literature in his field, reviewing the past year's work with his research team, planning the coming year's research, and developlng new research instruments in a workshop that he installed in the cottage he has owned in Woods Hole since 1968. As he sees it, he gets more work done away from the interruptions at NIH. MacNichol's anonymous critic com- plained as well that HINDS director of • intramural research, Henry G. Wagner, "also spends two summer months at Woods Hole. In addition, the critic noted that MacNichol and two other HINDS officials had detoured on an Aegean cruise while MacNichol was en route to the Dalmatian coast to visit Karat laboratory, which is partly sup- ported by U.S. counterpart funds. In his own letler MacNichol replied that he and his colleagues had taken official launched a second counteroffensive, with the unappealing name of Cancer- Cure Program (Science, 28 May 1971). A statement made by the President in- dicated a substantial shift which seemed to bring the Administration's position almost into line with the Kennedy pro- posal. But the Administration bill (S. 1828) that embodied the new position contained, among other fealures dis- pleasing to the Lasker forces, a pro- vision that the President could redele- gate his authority for the proposed can- cer agency back to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, which would leave everything much as before. For reasons that are not wholly clear, the Whim House tacticians agreed to an abject compromise, which consisted nf the substance of the Kennedy-Las- ker bill (S. 34) topped with the number of the Administration's bill (S. 1828), plus a face.saving and otherwise un- leave during the cruise and had pald thelr own travel expenses. Behlnd the criticism is the whole ques- tion of scientific tourism that involves unlversity scientists as much as govern- ment scientists and administrators. On the princlple that sc|ence knows nelther national nor inlernational boundaries, American scientists have built domestic and foreign travel into their life styles and grant appllcalions. Scientists are not masochists, and scientific gatherings are seldom scheduled, in disagreeable surroundings. MacNichol, for example, gave as a reason for accepting per diem during his summers at Woods Hole that "1 lose money during the rest of the year altending meetings of profes- sional groups which are usually held at expensive hotels." A remarkable number of international meetings are held in European capitals or in the ambiance af the Aegean, Adriatic, or M ~diterranean. Since World War II, federal science agencies have generally accepted the arguments for scientific cosmopolitanism although a cost benefit analysis would be difficult to make. The meetings range from exhaustive and exhausting work sessions to pleasant social gatherings in congenial surroundings. Side trips to interesting places are accepted as part of the life of successful scientists and their spouses. Other government offi- cials, including those in the Congress, supported phrase stipulating that the proposed cancer agency should be an independent agency "within the Na- lional Institutes ot~ Health." The out- lines of this compromise once agreed, two Senate aides set about fashioning a revised version of S. 1828 with the aid of a pair of scissors and a copy of S. 34. This compromise, by which the Ad- ministration traded the integrity of the NIH in return for Kennedy's drop- ping his sponsorship of the bill, met the approval of all but one of the 80 sena- tors who voted on the measure. The basic tenet of the Lasker strategy for a separate cancer agency--that Congress- men do not dare vote against more funds for cancer--seemed vindicated by the outcome of the Senate debate. But Senator Gaylord Nelson (D--Wis.), who cast the lone disscnting vote, believes he has not been harmed politically by his stand. "I haven't received any bad reac- Briefing make the most of such opportunities, as do businessmen when they can, and scientists are probably at least as scrupulous as others about paying for the detours themselves. On Capitol Hill, in the case of Mac- Nichol, scientific tourism appears to be a secondary issue, and Ihe question of the per diem payments are not the most bothersome aspect. One Hill aide fa- miliar with the case said that he ex- pects no technical violation will be found. He notes, however, that Mac- Nichol has taken annual leave in addi- tion to spending 2 months at the Cape in the summer, is an enthusiastic sailor who apparently sails regularly in sea- son. The aide asks, "How can an agency do a vigorous [oh when it has a part- time director?" A chronic problem for NIH lies in re- crult|ng and retalnlng able scientists and sci--nce admlnlstrators when com- peting institutlons, particularly medical schools, often can offer higher salaries and greater freedom. Ironically, NIH has contributed materially to creating these conditions. It is regarded as an advantage for NIH to have a man of MacNichol's scientific reputation in a top job. But MacNichol's explanation of how his work habits help him to do a more effective job is hard for NIH's patrons on Capitol Hill to understand and accept.--J.W. $ OC'£OBER 19"/1 TI07390392

fioax and the newspaper editoriaIs in my stat~ were in favor of my position,'" he told Science. Nelson's opposition to the Kennedy- Lasker bill may have been aided by aa old friend of his, Philip P. Cohen, pro- lessor of physiological chemistry at the University of Wisconsin. Cohen, who was a member of the National Advisory Cancer Council at the same time as Mrs./.asker and Farber, seems to have been one of the first members of tile scientific community to start lobbying against the Lasker proposals. In Mdrch 1971, he presented to Nelson's office a pelition signed by more than 450 bio- medical scientists in Wisconsin, includ- ing almost the entire faculty of the Mc- Ardle Laboratory for Cancer Research in Madison, protesting the establishment of a separate cancer agency. Nelson not only opposed the Kennedy bill in committee, producing an alternative bill that would have made the NIH as a whole independent, hut also took his fight to the House in an appearance last month before the Rogers subcom- mittee. Rogers, like Kennedy, has been chair- man of his subcommittee only since January. Both are eager to establish their authority in health matters, a pursuit which has already led them into conflict on several issues, notably health manpower legislation. Rogers spoke out agahast the idea of an inde- pendent cancer agency as early as Feb- ruary. He opened .his hearings on cancer by introducing on September 15 a bill designed to counter the Senate-passed bill in almost every particular. The chief thrust of the Rogers bill is to retain the National Cancer Institute within the NIH, but to transfer to the director of the NIH the czar-like powers designed by the Lasker group to be wielded by the director of an independent cancer authority. The Rogers bill raises the director of the NCI to the rank of asso- ciate director of the NIH (similar eleva- tion is accorded to the directors of two other major institutes--the heart and lung, and the neurological diseases and stroke). Under the bill, the director of the NCI is allowed to prepare an in- dependent budget, but the director ot~ NIH can see and comment on it before it goes to the President. "l'he director of NIH must also give his approval to any new peer-review system set up by the director of the NCI (in the Senate version of the bill, this approval is not required). An important feature of the Rogers bill is a provision authorizing the di- rectors of all NIH institutes to award grants of less than $20,000 without ap- proval by their national advisory coun- cils. This measure is designed to coun- ter a principal criticism leveled by the Lasker forces against the NCI, and corroborated by a General Accounting Office study, that grant proposals aro subject to average delays of up to 8 months. Rogers and his aides claim that their bill embodies the three specific recom- mendations made by the Senate Panel of Consultants better than does the Senate bill. Thus the Rogers bill adopts the funding levels recommended by the Panel (a budget rising to $600 million by fiscal 1974---the Senate bill asks only for such funds as are necessary), A group oLRussian and American physical and social scientists gathered in Byurakan, in Soviet Arthenla, last month to discuss a topic hitherto explored primarily by the writers of science fiction--the search for intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the universe. The conference on Communication with Extrater- restrial Intelligence (CETI)*, the first of its kind, was jointly arranged by the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S.S.R.'s Academy of Sciences. The state of the art being rudimentary, only a vague set of recom- mendations emerged from the talks. In essence, the con- ference found that the arts of astronomy, biology, com- puter science, and radiophysics have progressed to the stage where they can be used to make "serious and detailed investigations" of electromagnetic activity in the starry deeps, and that such investigations are warranted because their fruits might influence the whole future of man. In a joint Russian-American statement, the con- ferees called for strengthening research in such areas as prebiological organic chemistry and searches for extra- solar planetary systems, as well as for new investigations to be directed toward uncovering modes of search for signals. A Russian-American working group, which will be expanded to become multinational, was formed to arrange more meetings and direct further study. Two of the organizers of the conference, Carl Safari * "~he aeron~,rn was designed to evoke Tau Ceti. the nearest stml|k¢ .r.tar visible from the Northern Hemisphere, in the constellation Cetus. "l'his is the first place scientists ~oulcl look for other-worldly societies. Soviet-American Conference and Frank Drake of Cornell University's Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, held a press confer- ence in Washington last month to explain why the new .explorations were justified. They acknowledged that scientists have not, so far, run into any heavenly events that could plausibly be ascribed to other than natural sources. However, they pointed out, the planet Ea.rth is still a technological parvenu. According to optimistic projections, the nearest intelligent civilization--assuming that one star in a million is kospitable to advanced forms of life--is likely to be at least several hundred light-years away. Since high-frequency radio, TV, and radar emissions, the only signs of Earth that are detectable from interstellar dis- tanees, began only about 50 years ago, our earliest signals are only 50 years out in space and can hardly yet be expected to have reached a receptive audience. Sagan and Drake seemed to feel that there probably exist other civilizations whose technological sophistica- tion would make earthlings look as though they had just crawled out of the primordial slime. They posed the seductive notion that there might already exist a sort of "interstellar communications club" which would be eager to grant us membership if we could only make known our presence. Sagan had two basic arguments to support the idea that higher civilizations are around somewhere. First, he observed, man's view of his place in the universe has come a long way since the time Earth was thought to SCIENCE, VOL 174 T107390393

cal~ for the development of a cancer r~ear~h "program (the Senate bill doe~ not mention a plan), and makes specific proposals for streamlining the adminis- tration of cancer research. The Rogers bill was drawn up with advice from the Association of Ameri- can Medical Colleges, and the president of the newly created Institute of Medi- cine of the National Academy of Sciences, ffohn R. Hoguess, was present at otto drafting session with Rogers and AAMC president lohn A. D. Cooper. The fate of the Rogers bill depends on several" factors, foremost of which is whether Rogers can retain a majority of his subcommittee in the face of blandishments from both the Adminis- tration, which is supporting the Senate- pas~d bill, and the skill£ul lobbyists associated with Mary Lasker. Several features in the Rogers bill seem de- signed as bargaining counters, but the .failure of the Lasker lobbyists by last week to gain the compromise they had expected suggests that Rogers feels in a strong enough position with his sub- committee to drive a hard bargain. In whatever form the bill Ieaves the subcommittcc--and Rogers intends that his bill, not the Administration's, will b~ reported out--~ts next hurdle is in the full committee, the House Inter- state Commerce Committee, chaired by Harley O. Staggers (D-W.Va.). Both sides are claiming Staggers" support, although Staggers has not indicated where his opinion lies (he sponsored the House version of the Administration's cancer bill but only as a courtesy). The Lasker forces claim that their pull with the Democratic members of the full committee, together with the Adminis- tration's pressure on the Republican members, will ensure a majority for the Senate-passed measure. Should the Rogers bill bc reported out with the blessing of the full committee, it is almost certain to pass the House. Once in conference with the Senate, the House backers of a Rogers-type bill would be in R strong position, since in the event of dcadlock authority over cancer research will stay where it is, under the control of the NIH. The hearings held by Rogers' sub- committee, now in their fourth week, have produced some new faces, but few arguments that have not already surfaced at the Kennedy hearings. One reason, perhaps, is that the basic rationale for an independent cancer agency, that the NIH is incompetent to handle a major attack on cancer, has never been presented for serious argu- ment. "There's a grcat myth about the omnipotcncc of the NIH, just as there uscd to be about the Pcntagon, but in fact the place needs the same kind of going over as the Pentagon is getting from pcople like Proxmire," says one lobbyist associated with the Lasker cause. But the Lasker forces have not tried to prove this case except by sertion and, .rightly or wrongly the bulk of the biomedical community seems to favor the contrary view, as expressed by Senator Nclson before the Rogers sub- committee, that the NIH is "a unique arrangcment, probably the .finest insti- tution of its kind in the world, and cer- tainly. , o the undisputed leader in the field of biomedical research." --NICHOLAS WADE Urges Search for Other Worlds lm the center of everything, and now that we know we are, in fact, in .the "galactic boondocks," the obvious next step is to realize that life may not be uniq.uc to Earth. Second, he said, science has determined that amino acids, life's building blocks, can easily result from combinations of the simple chemicals and energy sources that already abound in space. And life can originate very fast, hc added--Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and earliest fossils have been found to date back 3.4 billion years. Of the two possible approaches--attempting com- munication with another civilization or eavesdropping on extraterrestrial radio activity--the latter was seen as preferable because of the huge time lags involved in transmission. Sagan and Drake think even the time problem might be overcome. Wc have not discovered anything that goes faster than the speed of light (except theoretical particles called tachyons, which can't bc dewed down), but, they. suggested, other civilizations might have discovered new laws of physics that could facilitate communication. At the press conference, Sagan threw an interesting sidelight on the question of unidentified flying objects, a phenomenon that has ba~ed physical and social scien- tists since the end of World War II. "Flying saucers" could hardly be the vanguard of another world's inter- stellar problems, said Sagan, because they arc uneco- nomical. Since all planets arc round, and therefore finite, their resources are limited; creatures competing for the mine resources must use them efficiently. Therefore, radio astronomy would universally be the most effective and cost-effective vehicle for cosmic explorations. The U.S. government has spent virtually nothing on finding out about extraterrestrial intelligence, said the two scientists, except for a $20,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for travel expenses to the CETI con- ference and a $100,000 design study on a new, giant, multi-billion dollar receiver that is being funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This re- ceiver would have a surface area of several square kil- ometers-which would make it ten times as big as the world's largest dish-shaped radio telescope in Are:ibo, Puerto Rico. Other conntries advanced in radio astronomy, includ- ing the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Australia, have shown little interest in the matter. The Soviets, though, have a modest program that involves a search for simultaneous extraterrestrial radiomagnetic events which are registered on a far-flung network of telescopes. They are also building a giant ring-shaped telescope one of whose duties will be to look for signs of intelligence from outer space. Sagan admitted that the research projected by CETI was "in the context of large technology expenditures that don't have immediate value for the man in the street"--a proper effort would require the sort of finan- cial outlays normally re~erved for nuclear and space activities~but "there arc few scientific endeavors which have the possibility of a greater payoff."---C.H. 131 T107390394