two decades a concerted effort to grapple with the problem which Moymhan identified in 1965," Loury concludes. "Surely the nation as a whole will suffer grievously if we refrain from any effort to shape our citizens' values on these matters today."
'Luce, Life, and 'The American Way'" Allan
C. Carlson, in This World (Winter 1986), 1112 16th St. N.W., Ste. 1500, Washington, D.C. 20036.
Most Americans today remember the weekly Life magazine (1936-72) as the 20th century's great...
Time before it went to press.
CBS (Jan. 23, 1982) broadcast a 90-minute Vietnam documentary, widely hailed the U.S. press. CBS purported to reveal a 1967 Saigon "conspiracy," ordered by Westmoreland, to "suppress" intelligence data on enemy manpower, thereby deceiving President Lyndon B. Johnson and easing the way for the Communists' surprise 1968 Tet offensive.
In reality, Adler notes, CBSs conspiracy story was totally wrong, as former LBJ aides told CBS before and after the...
PERIODICALS
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
thought, Louis Bourguet (1678-1742), a geologist, classified fossils and crystals along a "scale," starting the Great Chain of Being in the "mineral kingdom." The biologist Charles Bonnet (1720-1793) sought to rank members of the animal kingdom in terms of their deviation from "perfec- tion." Bonnet's universe, Rigotti notes, is "systematic: everything con- tained in it is arranged, related, linked, chained together." G...
Christo-oher Faille. in This World (Smine 1986). 1112 16th St. N.w., Ste. 1500; Washington; D.C. 20036.
In his time, France's Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a phenomenon: a mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and humble recluse who worked through the church to help the poor.
As a scientist, Pascal was responsible for first postulating the existence of vacuums in nature, developing theories of probability, and formulating the physical laws governing pressure.
Yet Faille, an intellectual historian,...
Stephen J.
..
Cheetahs O'Brien. David E. Wildt. and Mitchell Bush. in
scientific American (M& 1986), 415 adi is on
Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.
The fastest animal on earth, the cheetah, is now in a race against extinc- tion. Centuries ago, the feline predator-light, long-limbed, and able to overtake fleeing prey at 70 miles per hour-roamed Africa, the Middle East, and India in great numbers. Today, barely 20,000 remain, scattered among a few remote regions of Africa.
In 1981, O'Brien, Wildt,...
Janet Raloff, in Sci-Saving Teeth ence News (Apr. 19, 1986), 1719 N St. N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 10036.
Long known for their readiness to use the drill, dentists have discovered a less painful way to fight tooth decay and strengthen weak teeth: mouth- washes that "remineralize" decayed tooth enamel.
Normally, mineral-rich saliva from glands in the mouth protects teeth from acids secreted plaque-forming bacteria. But when the bacteria's acids dissolve tooth minerals faster than the body...
Janet Raloff, in Sci-Saving Teeth ence News (Apr. 19, 1986), 1719 N St. N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 10036.
Long known for their readiness to use the drill, dentists have discovered a less painful way to fight tooth decay and strengthen weak teeth: mouth- washes that "remineralize" decayed tooth enamel.
Normally, mineral-rich saliva from glands in the mouth protects teeth from acids secreted plaque-forming bacteria. But when the bacteria's acids dissolve tooth minerals faster than the body...
using lenses to bend light, which either passes through or is reflected back the specimen under scrutiny. An electron microscope employs the same principle-except that it uses a beam of-electrons instead of light to create a magnified image. The new STMs utilize a different method altogether: A small probe passes closely over a specimen, senses the contour of the atoms on its surface, and sends the information to a computer, which generates a picture.
Early versions of the STM (as with electron...
Rashid A. Shaikh, in Technol-osy Review (Apr. 1986), Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology, Bldg. 10, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
In 1977, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) banned the domestic sale of children's sleepwear treated with Tris, a flame retar- dant; studies had shown that Tris caused cancer. American garment dis- tributors-their warehouses filled with unsalable clothing-cut their losses exporting 2.4 million pairs of the fireproofed pajamas.
Under public pressure, the...
backing the UN Environment Program's pro-
posal to compile a worldwide list of all hazardous export products. Without
U.S. backing, he argues, any UN export safety effort will surely stall.
ARTS & LETTERS
"A Posthumous Mies: The Case Against" Jo-
seph Rykwert, in Art in America (Apr. 1986),
980 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10021,
At the 1968 opening ceremony of the New National Gallery in Berlin- an austere, glass-faced pavilion perched on a windowless stone base-the museum's dir...