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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1988)
- earkd v^l-»itcss, <ar^cJI hti^ a*x-*£ integrated in that sense. “Winning the Pulitzer puts him in the company of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill,” Schultz says. “That’s not bad company. ” Gordone says winning the Pulitzer has its difficult times as well. “You find you have to equal or better your work, and that’s wrong,” Gordone says. “You can just do your best People expect you to go back to the typewriter and really come up with someting heavy. “There’s a time when it’s quite painful because people expect you to jump right up and be prolific,” he says. “I’m not a prolific writer. It takes me awhile.” Aside from winning the Nobel and the Pulitzer Prizes, there is also great honor in being a member of certain societies. One of the most prestigious is the Royal Society. It began in early 17th century England as a group of scientists who gathered regularly to discuss their work. The Society was made royal in 1662 under King Charles II. One of its early members was Sir Isaac Newton. The Society decided early to elect fellows who had made a significant contribution to science into the group. Today that same tradition continues. Each year forty new members are elected into the Society for practicing superior science in their respective field. Members are elected from every field of science. Dr. Ian Scott, director of the Center for Biological Nuclear Magnetic Research at A&M, is a member of the Royal Society. Scott was appointed to the Society for his work in biosynthetic chemistry, the science of finding out how chemical compounds are made in the cells of living organisms. Scott grew up in the United Kingdom. Although he admired many of his professors who were fellows of the Society, he never really thought about becoming a fellow himself. “Like most (scientists), I just went on with my work, and one day it just came, ” he says. “It was a very nice suprise. ” Scott has made significant contributions to science through his work. He and his colleagues have discovered several metabolic pathways, including ways that some vitamins and antibodies are made and the way plants make medicinal compounds useful in cancer treatment. “I realized at an early age that working in a research enlironment is not really like work at all because it’s Entering the 21 st century 1 to cio, ” says. Today he is excited about his work’s potential as well as the potential of A&M. “A&M has gone from being a very good teaching college to a first-rate research environment, especially in chemistry, which is rated very easily among the top 20 (departments) in the United States, ” Scott says. “Our goal is to put it in the top five. ” Like Borlaug, Scott gives the U.S. government much credit for scientific advances in the country. “One of the best things about the United States is that, regardless of background, if you work hard and produce good results in science, the system is such that there is no barrier to exploiting the results you’ve discovered,” he says. “In other words, if you keep producing results, die government will keep funding you. That’s not true of every country. ” While Scott says the United States has been a leader in research, he warns of increasing competition from strong competitors like Japan and West Germany. “The United States has always been a leader and it’s important that they maintain that position, ” he says. Patti Easterling From computers to disposable contact lenses, today’s technology is growing at an incredible rate. In the past five years, the nation has gone from watching Barney Clark become a medical miracle, surviving 112 days with an artificial heart, to seeing artificial hearts being implanted daily. And for the last 10 years we have watched Louise Brown, the world’s first test-tube baby, grow up and become little more than a statistic among the thousands of test-tube babies bom today. Medicine seems to be the fastest growing among research and technology today. Diabetics are one example of people who benefit from advances in medical technology. In the past 30 years, insulin has progressed from being a hard to obtain, unreliable means of diabetes control to a common and excellent way of managing a diabetic’s health. Complex and costly ways of monitoring the disease have now become easy to use and inexpensive. Insulin injections have become relatively painless with “needle-less” injectors. In fact, experiments with administering insulin through eyedrops and nasal sprays may render the many living rooms as a necessity rather than a luxury. Sony Walkmans were the new craze in 1979. The large, bulky portable radios have now been replaced by gadgets the size of credit cards. Some can actually be listened to underwater. Telephones are another commodity that now show up in every color, shape, and form imaginable. The old “drug store” telephone that the nation watched John Boy Walton talk on as he was growing up has been replaced by Mickey Mouse. Cellular phones that can be used while driving have become the innovation of the decade. What was once used for business purposes has now developed in to something everyone “has to have. ” Picture phones are also starting to appear. You can now buy a phone that lets you see the person you’re talking to, assuming the person on the other end can afford one too. Telephone answering machines, once limited to business offices, have now moved into homes and dorm roooms across the country. Computers have also evolved tremendously in the world of technology. Computers can be programmed to do almost anything people want them to do at a price most people can afford. In as little as a decade, the computer has grown from a large, expensive piece of machinery that few could operate to a relatively inexpensive, user-friendly household appliance. The calculator, like the computer, has also become an object that the average person can’t do without. In as little as 30 years our world has advanced from slide rules to calculators that can perform every possible mathematical function. Perhaps today’s most intriguing technological innovation deals with the common band-aid. “Skin patches,” as they are sometimes called, may someday become one of the most unusual technological advances of society. Skin patches are similar to a band-aid in design and contain medication that can be absorbed through the skin. The world of research and technology is moving at a tremendous rate. Fifty years from now, things that are new and exciting technological innovations will be relics of the past, just as slide rules are today. Graphics by Lynn Lytton injections obsolete. Organ transplants are another branch of medical research that has grown tremendously over the last decade. Heart, liver and kidney transplants were once called medical miracles. Now these transplants are everyday occurrences. Scientists have also made great strides toward finding a cure for cancer. According to the 1986 volume of “Accomplishments in Cancer Research, ” the past 50 years have yielded new therapies that are making some cancers curable now. With the addition of chemotherapy and the refinement of radiation procedures in cancer therapy, cancer patients are living longer lives. Electronic technology has provided new means of entertainment for people of all ages. Less than 50 years ago, owning a television was a luxury. Today, not only does practically every household have a television, virtually every room has one. And next to almost every Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack . Charles Gordone directs Martell Stroup, a junior theater tension, the once expensive arts major, on proper acting techniques during rehearsals an ^ °’ DSolete ^eo cassette for “A Question of Identity.” recorder now ftnds lts P lace in Thursday; Sept. 29,1988/At Ease/Page 11