WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 10 Jan 03 Washington, DC

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 10 Jan 03   Washington, DC

1. CLOSER TO MIDNIGHT: THE MOUSE IS ROARING.  North Korea today
announced its withdrawal from the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.  The treaty dictates a 90-day cooling-off period before
the withdrawal becomes effective, but North Korea growled that it
wasn't waiting.  Six months ago the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM
Treaty became official, following a similar ninety-day cooling-
off period(WN 14 Jun 02).  They weren't entirely effective, but
these two treaties were all that stood in the way of a world-wide
nuclear arms race.  As if to emphasize this point, Brazil's new
Minister of Science declared they too need the bomb.

2. MISSILE DEFENSE: NO INTERCEPT TESTING UNTIL AUTUMN.  "What's
going on?," I asked Puff Panegyric at the Missile Defense Agency.
"I hear the next two scheduled tests of the ground-based mid-
course interceptor have been scrubbed, and no interceptor tests
will be attempted before fall.  Deployment, however, is still set
for the end of 2004." Puff shrugged,"you have to set priorities
in this game, the goal is to deploy.  Management feels testing
threatens to divert us from that goal.  As you know, we had a
booster-separation problem in the last test.  That led to our new
policy, 'deploy now, test later.'  We find it keeps us right on
schedule.  We'll have those missiles in silos by late summer of
'04 whether they work or not." "Thanks Puff, I'll sleep better."

3. MISCONDUCT: "THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST" IS DENOUNCED. 
Bjorn Lomborg, author of the 1999 best-seller, was found to be
scientifically dishonest by the Danish Research Agency, Denmark's
equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences.  An associate
professor at the University of Aarhus, Lomborg concluded that the
"air and water around us is becoming less and less polluted." 
Industry-backed think tanks loved it, but a panel of scientists
responsible for investigating charges of scientific dishonesty
found Lomborg had been highly selective in his choice of data.

4. SCIENTIFIC HOAX?  NO, NO, NOT THE CLONING, MICHAEL GUILLEN. 
We now learn that the scientist/journalist, who grandly announced
that he was accepting the responsibility of testing the Clonaid
claim "on behalf of the scientific community," tried to market an
exclusive to the media before Eve was born, which raises serious
questions about his independence.  Even Fox Entertainment, which
gave us such classics as Alien Autopsy, declined on ethical
grounds. Wednesday, Guillen was interviewed by Charles Gibson on
ABC Good Morning America.  "You are a Professor of Physics at
Harvard?" Gibson began, by way of establishing Guillen's
credentials. "Yes," Guillen mouthed.  Whoa!  Guillen is not a
Professor of Physics at Harvard.  I went to American Men and
Women of Science; the edition I had was 1995-96.  His
autobiographical sketch says he's a member of the National
Academy of Sciences.  He's not.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND and THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY.  
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the
University or the American Physical Society, but they should be.
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