June 2000 Newsletter

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will be meeting in San Francisco in February 2001 and the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) will hold its annual meeting here concurrent with that gathering.

Local science writers traditionally put together a social event for visiting NASW members. NCSWA has begun planning a major event for the evening of Sunday, February 18, 2001. In that we intend to stage a party that will be talked about for years, we will need to raise a significant amount of money for this event. One party venue we're seriously considering is Ruby Skye, a hip nightclub a few blocks from the meeting hotel. Do you know of any other places we should be thinking about that are relatively near Union Square (the site of the AAAS meeting hotel) and that can handle about 400 crazed science writers? We need NCSWA members to help with planning and fundraising for this event. If you have any ideas for what we can do to make this a memorable event, send them to Sally Stephens at skates@slip.net. And if you want to help out with planning and/or fundraising, let Sally know.

In other NASW party news, Mary Miller reports that the annual NASW gala reception (held during the 2001 AAAS meeting, but a separate event from the one mentioned in the previous paragraph) will be held at the Exploratorium. Explo staffer Mary Miller is working with Diane McGurgan on the logistics. As of this writing, the AAAS/Whitaker awards will be given at the AAAS Press Reception and we think the NASW awards will be given at the NASW banquet: how's that for a logical decision? At any rate, the Exploratorium and all its hands-on science exhibits will be the backdrop for lots of great finger food, wine and beer. And no, we won't close the bar prematurely like they did at the NASW Smithsonian party last year.

JUNE’S NCSWA DINNER WITH BARUCH BLUMBERG
By Xanna Schweickhardt

NCSWA members who ventured down the Peninsula to San Carlos’ Kabul Afghan Cuisine restaurant heard a thought-provoking talk by Dr. Baruch Blumberg, head of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center in Mountain View. NASA's approach to astrobiology, he said, encompasses nothing more or less than "the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on earth and in the universe."

"Actually," Blumberg said, "there's no solid evidence of life anywhere but earth, but there's enough inference" to make scientists look for it elsewhere. One major clue comes from a few unusual meteorites found in Antarctica. These rocks have air bubbles trapped deep inside. The proportion of argon and neon gases in the bubbles matches samples of Martian air analyzed by spacecraft studying Mars, but not terrestrial air. Scientists think the meteorites are pieces of Mars that eventually found their way to Earth after being blasted into space when something large smashed into the red planet. These Martian meteorites contain magnetic crystals that have characteristics similar to biologically-originating magnetite, suggesting life may have once existed on Mars.

Indeed, life on Earth has been found to exist under conditions previously thought impossible. Some bacteria live at 113 degrees Celsius, and others under extreme high pressure and cold at the bottom of the Marianas trench. One life form, not classified yet, grows in caves and lives at a pH near 0 -- extremely acidic. All these creatures, known collectively as "extremophiles," prove how robust life can be outside "standard" Earthly conditions, and suggest life may be able to exist in the harsh environments of other planets. They also may provide clues to the earliest forms of life on Earth, those that could have survived the intense bombardment of our planet by large objects early in its history, and that might have thrived before there was any oxygen in our atmosphere.

Blumberg calls the NASA Astrobiology Institute a "virtual institute" because its 440 members are spread out among 11 institutions around the nation, plus the Spanish Astrobiology Institute, rather than sharing offices down the hall from one another. Institute members communicate via elaborate teleconferencing technology. The Institute itself was designed to be multi-national and multi-disciplinary. "Inter-disciplinary is very hard to pull off," he said. Trying to get 440 independent thinkers to work together is "kind of like herding cats," he added. Team members include 13 National Academy of Sciences members and "half a dozen" Nobel Prize winners. Blumberg himself won the 1976 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for his work on the hepatitis B vaccine. The NAI, begun last year, is chartered for 20 years (though not funded for that long).

NAI plans to carefully study the results of space missions, including:

	The Terrestrial Planet Finder (2010) will search space for Earth-like planets.
	The Space Interferometry Mission (2004) will identify chemicals on planets around other stars.
	The Kepler Mission (2004) will search for other planets close to Earth's size (Earth is considered the optimal size for life). Current telescopes can only distinguish planets down to about 70% of Jupiter's size.

All these investigations proceed on the assumption that life does exist outside of Earth. "If we reject the idea that there is life elsewhere," Blumberg said, "this kind of reverses the Copernican revolution." After Copernicus discovered that Earth is not the center of our solar system, he explained, "We had to acknowledge we're not the center of the universe." This became more and more true as we discovered we're pretty close to the edge of our own galaxy -- and ours is just one of billions of galaxies. "Suppose we discover we ARE the only life anywhere?" he suggested. "This would tend to put us back in the center of the picture."

NCSWA MEMBER NEWS
NCSWA Board Member and US News and World Report senior writer, Charlie Petit, along with senior editor Laura Tangley, nabbed a runner's-up plaque from the American Society for Microbiology Public Communications Award 2000 for their "Invisible Emperors" piece from last fall.

Desiree Karge sends word of the birth of her first daughter, Sophie-Luise, on April 22nd in Mountain View. Since then, she notes, "she hasn't given me any time to continue writing for Bild der Wissenschaft. But that's ok, at least for the next couple of months. She is, of course, the prettiest baby in Sunnyvale. Not much to say so far in regards to her writing and piano skills, but she already has huge hands that cover the keyboard very easily. What a pity that she can't carry heavy boxes yet, since we are about to move to San Jose next weekend. We just bought a house near Valley Fair Shopping center, where, needless to say, Sophie-Luise is going to spend her pocket money."

Geoff Koch, new NCSWAn from the Intel Museum, writes about semi-conductor science and the Internet from his perch in Santa Clara. He occasionally escapes Silicon Valley traffic to cover interesting happenings in the world of computers. He most recently attended Harvard's "Internet and Society 2000" conference the week of May 29th. He reports that, per the thinkers at the conference, future visits to the doctor's office may be just as likely to end with an "information prescription" as with a prescription for a little white pill. Browse these two web sites and call me in the morning?

"Something like that," he says. Geoff also confirms that Boston's public transportation system beats the pants off the Silicon Valley's. To arrange for a tour of the Intel Museum, or to gripe about Bay Area traffic, contact Geoff by e-mail at geoffrey.koch@intel.com.

NCSWA JOB NEWS
Dan Carlson sends word that: "I left my job of eight years doing writing, multimedia production, and web design at PE Applied Biosystems to take a position as a Sr. Information Architect at Sapient, an e-commerce services provider." His new contact info is: Dan Carlson, Sr. Information Architect, Sapient, 2300 Harrison, San Francisco, dcarlson@sapient.com, 415-249-2734.

Sue Wallace notes that: "I don't know if this is particularly newsworthy (although I'm delighted) but I quit my part-time day job and am now exclusively freelancing."

NCSWA ex-patriot Karen Watson has just been promoted to executive producer overall for Discovery Channel online programming at Discovery.com. She says that means she'll be involved in a lot more convergence work with the television folks.

Diane Ainsworth has assumed her duties as a principal editor in the University Communications Office at UC Berkeley, covering earth and space sciences, the health sciences, technology and university news. Diane also freelances for such publications as Astronomy magazine and Rangefinder, a photography trade magazine. She recently joined the Berkeley staff from

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, where she was a senior media relations specialist. She welcomes story ideas and science chat. You can reach her at dea@pa.urel.berkeley.edu or DEAinsworth@compuserve.com, 510-643-6259.

David Orenstein has moved from Computerworld to Business 2.0 where, since April, he has been covering emerging computer and communications technologies for the "Breakthrough" section.

Remember, if you’d like to see your name in "print" or pass on some hot gossip for the next newsletter, e-mail the details to Sally Stephens at skates@slip.net.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Check the NCSWA online membership roster to see when your membership dues are up for renewal.  If your dues are due,  use the online membership form to renew