public agencies and private institutions
"American Professors: A National Resource Imperiled."
Oxford University Press, 200 Madison Aye., New York, N.Y. 10016. 322 pp. $24.95. Authors: Howard R. Bowen and Jack H. Schuster
American colleges and universities are caught between a rock and a hard place. Not only must they contend with a shrink- ing demographic pool of students, but ac- cording to Bowen and Schuster, professors of economics and public policy, respec- tively, at Claremont Gr...
Fred Smoller, in Presidential Studies Quarterly (Winter 1986), 208 East 75th St., New York,
N.Y. 10021.
As presented on the nightly TV network news, presidential faux pas have contributed some less-than-august images to American history: Gerald Ford stumbling out of Air Force One; Jimmy Carter fending off a "killer rabbit"; Ronald Reagan bumbling at press conferences.
The public may be amused, but Smoller, a political scientist at Chap- man College, is not. He argues that such gratuitously...
TV? Smoller suggests a look at the tactics of President Reagan, who has received even more negative TV coverage than Nixon, Ford, or Carter. taking a "con-trolled" approach to the media-using weekly radio broadcasts, televised presidential addresses-and by carefully shaping the cameras' access to himself and his key aides, Reagan has held on to his popularity and tri- umphed as the Great Communicator.
RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY
"Religion in Post-Mao China' by Merle Gold-man, in...
Robin West, in Harvard Law Review (Dec. 1985). Gannett House, Cambridge, Mass. 02138.
Should the law permit informed, consenting adults to pursue any danger- ous course of action they choose?
Some libertarian philosophers and legal scholars answer Yes. Richard Posner, a federal judge and author of The Economics of Justice (1983), argues that protection of such personal "autonomy" should be a guiding legal principle. He assumes that people will only choose to do what will 'improve their...
Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, in Technol-ogy Review, (Jan. 1986), Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology, Rrn. 10-140, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
A quarter century ago, researchers in "artificial intelligence" (AD-a branch of computer science attempting to reproduce the process of thought-predicted that, within two decades, computers would be able to do everything humans can do.
This breakthrough has not occurred. The Dreyfuses, professors of phi- losophy and engineering, respectively, at...
" in The Econo-
mist (Jan. 18, 1986), 25 St.James's St.,Lon-
don, SWA1A lHG, England.
Under normal circumstances, most people experience a four-dimensional world (three dimensions in space and one in time). Most students envision the building blocks of matter as little "bits," with electrons circling an atomic nucleus much as the Earth orbits the Sun.
Such notions will soon be considered obsolete. Contemporary physi- cists, like their forebears during the 1920s, are reinterpreting...
expanding the number of spatial dimensions in the Kaluza-Klein model to 10, and interpreting subatomic matter as "strings" of energy (instead of particles), many of the mathematical contradictions faded.
There are still kinks in the model. In its present form, it cannot account for all matter in the universe. But the study of string theory is becoming a booming field. Green, Schwarz, Edward Witten of Princeton, and Stephen Hawking of Cambridge are among scores of physicists trying to...
the destruction of brain cells in the substantia nigra (an area just above the spinal cord) that secrete the chemical dopamine, Parkinson's symptoms abate when the level of doparnine is raised. Since the adrenal glands (located above the kidneys) also produce dopamine, its cells are excellent candidates-for transplants.
Olson and Seiger tried adrenal-brain grafts in rats and partially re- versed Parkinson's debilitating effects. In 1982, they made the leap to humans, grafting adrenal cells into...
David Osbome, in
The Atlantic (Feb. 19861, 8 Arlington St., Bos-
ton, Mass. 02116.
Following the much-publicized energy crisis of the 1970s, many Western pundits warned that diminishing petroleum reserves might threaten future economic growth.
Such fears are unfounded, says Thomas Gold, a Comell astrophysicist. Indeed, he claims that the Earth still harbors an enormous untapped supply of oil and gas.
The prevailing geologists' theory of oil and natural gas formation, notes Osbome. a contributor...
Anthony V. Nero, Jr., in Technology Review (Jan. 19861, Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology, Rm. 10-140, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.
Few phenomena are as worrisome to Americans as radiation, commonly associated with nuclear power plants. Yet the greatest source of radiation exposure for most Americans may be the air in their own homes.
"Significant amounts of radon-a natural radioactive gas-accumulate in our houses simply because we tend to build them on the largest source of radioactivity...