www.physicstoday.org

Not just cosmetic: L'Oréal and UNESCO are rewarding five women from around the globe for their scientific contributions in crystallography, disordered materials, scaling laws of fluids and complex systems, and electron microscopy of crystals and quasicrystals.

This year's "for women in science" awards by cosmetics giant L'Oréal and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognize lifetime achievements by women in condensed matter sciences. The awards are in their fifth year, but this is the first time they've rewarded work in the physical sciences. The awards were also increased fivefold this year, with five women from five continents each receiving $100 000.

"It seems to me that giving due recognition to women scientists can create a useful psychological shock," Nobel laureate Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, who served as president of the awards committee, said in a statement when the winners were selected. Women are "often more perceptive" than men and they "know how to stand by" someone whose morale is flagging, de Gennes said of women in their capacity as research group leaders. "Men are not so good at this." He added that "women know better than men how to preserve the freedom of student researchers. The result is that their students are more mature."

The awards were bestowed at UNESCO's Paris headquarters on 27 February.

(Letter published in Science, Vol. 299, p. 1184, Feb, 21-2003)

The current political crisis in Venezuela threatens to destroy the Venezuelan scientific infrastructure, built up during the past 50 years. During 2002, the Ministry of Science and Technology received only 1/3 of the approved budget and most of the spending was diverted to maintain its bureaucracy. During 2003 the government is actively engaged in a continuous dismantling of scientific research. Specifically it has decided to restructure Intevep, the well known research and development institute of the national oil company PDVSA. On Feb 4, the government expelled over 881 employees from Intevep. This and other hapless decisions, such as the arbitrary imposition of a new law regulating science and technology, containing provisions allowing for authoritarian interference from the central government, undermine the continuity of the modest but high quality scientific activity of Venezuela, which was ranked fifth among Latin American countries.

Likewise, universities are not counting on, or expecting, budgetary resources to guarantee their operation, as even salaries for professors and employees are at risk. The budget for higher education is being cut by 22% in the first semester of 2003, while the bolivar, the local currency, has lost more than half of its value during the past year. With real buying power reduced to about a third of that in 2002, and with free access to foreign currencies blocked by decree, libraries will be unable to maintain subscriptions, and most research will have to be suspended. Such circumstances have been experienced elsewhere in Latin America before. We envision a stampede of scientists to neighboring and developed world countries, a hiatus in the growth of young researchers and the arrest and even disappearance of a research community that has shown moderate but continuous growth over the past five decades.

Although our political crisis will have to be resolved by ourselves, the awareness of our tragedy in the international scientific community might help reduce its devastating effects.

Board of Directors Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science - Caracas

Klaus Jaffe kjaffe@usb.ve; Reinaldo Di Polo dipolor@ivic.ve; José Cardier jcardier@mail.ivic.ve; Ricardo Rios rrios@euler.ciens.ucv.ve; Rene Utrera rutrera@usb.ve; Morella Rodriguez mrodri@telcel.net.ve; Luis Briceño Zoppi zoppi753@telcel.net.ve; Ana Maria Rojas nanaro@cantv.net; Alicia Ponte aiponte@reacciun.ve; Benjamin Scharifker benjamin@usb.ve; Manuel Bemporad manolob@cantv.net

www.irna.com United Nations, Mar 1, IRNA -- An Iranian female scientist, Shiva Seyed Forootan, was awarded a United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO) fellowship on Friday.
The Iranian molecular biologist was among 15 outstanding women scientists in the world who won the UNESCO fellowship during a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
She was one of the two women scientists from the Asia-Pacific region who was awarded the fellowship at a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on Friday. The last fellowship recipient from this region is to be announced in the coming weeks.
At the ceremony, which marked the fifth anniversary of the L'OREAL-UNESCO "For Women in Science" program, 15 young scientific researchers received the annual UNESCO L'ORAL fellowships.
The awards, presented by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of L'OREAL Lindsay Owen-Jones and Director-General of UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura, recognized for the first time women working in the field of the material sciences.
Five laureates in the material sciences, in addition to 15 fellowships in the life sciences, were honored at the event.
The L'OREAL-UNESCO "For Women in Science" program aims to improve the position of women in science by recognizing outstanding women researchers who have contributed to scientific progress as well as young women scientists engaged in exemplary and promising projects.
The L'OREAL-UNESCO awards distinguish five remarkable women researchers representing the five continents of Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. Often, these women's exceptional careers have opened up new and revolutionary ways of improving conditions of life and well-being.
This year's awards bring to 71 the number of women from various countries who have been honored by the program.
The exemplary scientists come from 45 countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, Australia, Romania, Turkey, Argentina, Pero and Venezuela.
The annual international award ceremony is the highest of an increasingly full program of local initiatives being organized
worldwide, including activities in Austria, Belgium, China, Finland,
Germany, Italy, Republic of Korea, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom. These initiatives make sure women in science benefit even further from the partnership forged between L'OREAL and UNESCO.
Speaking at the ceremony, UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura said: "You are the role models for today's young girls, opening a door to freedom and adventure that has been forbidden them from too long. In today's knowledge societies, women must contribute to scientific research, and mark it with their vision of the world and its development."
FM/LS
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indymedia.ie

by Karmen Selis - Andes Libre News Service Fri, Feb 14 2003, 8:08am address: www.aporrea.org; www.bluegreenearth.com phone: web,master@andeslibre.zzn.com eco@andeslibre.zzn.com

US Addicitons Haunt the World US addictions haunt and terrorize the world: OIL, WEAPONS, DRUGS. US BAD BOYS and their friends in Latin America have held power for decades. Now they are being run out of town by Hugo Chavez, the people of Bolivia and New Ideas. Guns and Money aren’t enough anymore – Hope lives – Struggle Consumes

People of Latin America vs. the Bad Boys of the US Empire

BY KARMEN SELIS at eco@andeslibre.zzn.com

www.usnews.com Science & Technology 2/24/03

Triumph of the helix: 50 years ago, life met its master molecule.

DNA meets its match: RNA takes charge.

Check out our recommended reading list on genetics.

1866 Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, shows how traits are inherited in pea plants.

1869 Swiss biochemist Johann Friedrich Miescher isolates "nucleic acid" from cells in pus.

1944 Oswald Avery and associates discover that DNA carries genetic information.

1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discover the double-helix structure of DNA.

1961 Sydney Brenner, Francois Jacob, and Matthew Meselson identify messenger RNA, which carries genetic information from DNA to the cell's protein-making factories.

1966 Teams led by Marshall Nirenberg and H. Gobind Khorana crack the genetic code, showing that sets of three "letters" on DNA spell out the 20 different components of proteins.

1973 Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen develop recombinant DNA technology--tools for cutting and splicing DNA to create genetically engineered organisms.

1975 At the Asilomar Conference in California, scientists agree on the need for safeguards in genetic engineering research.

1976 The Cambridge (Mass.) City Council, fearing rogue organisms, imposes a three-month moratorium on recombinant DNA research at Harvard University, halting lab construction.

1976 Boyer and venture capitalist Robert Swanson found Genentech, the world's first biotechnology company.

1977 Scientists including Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger devise ways to sequence DNA.

1978 Genentech develops recombinant human insulin, eventually marketed asHumulin, the first drug made by genetic engineering.

1980 The Supreme Court rules that a genetically modified organism, a bacterium developed by General Electric Co. to break down oil spills, can be patented.

1983 Kary Mullis conceives the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a method for multiplying traces of DNA into usable amounts. PCR soon becomes a major tool in research, medicine, and forensics.

1983 With blood samples collected by Nancy Wexler from a large family in Venezuela, James Gusella and others identify the gene responsible for Huntington's disease, leading to the first genetic test for a disease.

1984 Alec Jeffreys develops DNA fingerprinting, a technique for identifying individuals from their DNA that is a boon to forensics and paternity cases.

1987 Tommie Lee Andrews is convicted of rape in Orlando based on DNA fingerprinting--the first such case in the nation.

1988 Harvard geneticists receive the first U.S. patent for a genetically altered animal, the oncomouse, engineered to develop cancer.

1989 DNA evidence for the first time overturns a conviction, clearing Gary Dotson of an Illinois rape.

1990 PCR brings back the dinosaurs in Michael Crichton's bestseller Jurassic Park by amplifying traces of dinosaur DNA in prehistoric biting insects preserved in amber.

1990 An international effort to sequence the human genome begins.

1990 Researchers at London's Hammersmith Hospital are the first to screen test-tube embryos for genetic defects before implanting them.

1994 Scientists locate the BRCA-1 gene, responsible for almost half of the breast cancers linked to heredity.

1994 The Flavr Savr tomato, designed to ripen slowly, is the first genetically altered food approved by the FDA.

1997 Scotland's Roslin Institute announces the birth of Dolly the lamb, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.

1997 DNA shows that Cheddar Man, a 9,000-year-old pile of bones at the Natural History Museum in London, is the direct ancestor of a living Englishman.

1997 The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory acknowledges secret genetic testing of employees for the sickle-cell trait.

1997 DNA from 40,000-year-old Neanderthal bone indicates that modern humans did not interbreed with these prehistoric people.

1997 Gattaca--a sci-fi film named for DNA's letters--depicts human genetic manipulation.

1998 DNA testing links President Clinton to the stain on Monica Lewinsky's dress.

1998 Researchers for the first time sequence the entire DNA of an animal, theroundworm C. elegans.

2000 Clinton issues an order barring federal agencies from using genetic information in hiring, firing, or promotion.

2000 Researchers complete the first rough drafts of the human genome.

2000 Traces of genetically modified corn, approved only for animal feed, are found in taco shells, prompting recalls.

2002 Rice is the first crop to have its genome decoded.

2003 Dolly the sheep is euthanized because of health problems that raise questions about cloning safety. -Carol Hook