National Academy

WASHINGTON -- A national panel of scientists urged Congress yesterday to uphold federal protections for wetlands, noting that marshes, bogs and even drier lands help clean up Chesapeake Bay and other waterways.In a report released as the House prepares to vote on amending the federal Clean Water Act, a 17-member panel assembled by the National Research Council said the federal system for identifying and protecting wetlands is basically sound. The research council is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, which Congress commissioned two years ago to study controversial government restrictions on farming and developing wetlands.

PBS took over the lead as the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced nominees for its 15th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards earlier this week.PBS snagged 30 nominations while ABC earned 21. CBS took 20 nominations and NBC got 13. Fox trailed with two nominations.Turner Broadcasting doubled last year's eight nominations for 16 this go-round.CNN earned nine nominations, followed by Discovery Channel's six, A&E's three, and HBO's two. Lifetime picked up one nomination -- Linda Ellerbee's "Ms. Smith Goes to Washington."

WASHINGTON -- The controversial French-made drug RU-486, used heavily overseas for abortion, may have many uses in treating women's medical problems and might even work as a birth-control pill, a National Academy of Sciences study committee said yesterday.In a broad new review of RU-486's scientific profile, the seven-member NAS committee argued that the drug's potential is so varied that U.S. doctors, scientists, laboratories and research clinics should be doing a multitude of studies on a faster-than-usual timetable.

Washington. -- America's high temple of science has produced a simple answer to a question that politicians have pondered since World War II, when Washington became the nation's principal financier of serious research: How much is enough?The response, from the National Academy of Sciences, is a formula that would be tantamount to an unrestricted draw on the U.S. Treasury.In this deficit-laden period, the issue of scientific funding is especially poignant because of the basic insatiability of science.

WASHINGTON -- The problems facing America's youth are so severe that the situation amounts to "a human and national tragedy," according to a National Research Council report released Tuesday.The document, which involved no new research or statistics, was prepared by reviewing existing studies on the subject. The council report also offered no solutions, except to urge the nation's policy-makers to give a high priority to research and programs that could improve the well-being of America's young people.

Washington. -- Forget about the antediluvian men's country clubs and dining societies. When it comes to retrograde attitudes toward equality of women, the really invulnerable bastions are the Washington-based organizations that run American science.Science, the embodiment of truth-seeking and enlightenment, inhospitable to women? Yes, indeed. A web of alibis has been spun to explain away the situation. But the basic fact is that the governance of science is predominantly under the control of a self-perpetuating old-boy network that has endured for decades.

WASHINGTON -- Going one better than President Bush's "no net loss" of wetlands pledge, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences says America needs "an accelerated national effort" to repair lakes, marshes, streams and swamps that already are polluted or otherwise damaged.The committee urged the federal government to establish a long-term strategy for restoring the nation's aquatic ecosystems and suggested that Congress create a "national aquatic restoration trust fund" to finance it.However, in a report entitled, "Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems: Science, Technology and Public Policy," the panel avoided estimating how much a national restoration effort would cost.

Do you use pesticides in your home or garden? Do you spray your roses? Zap your wasps? Bait your slugs? Poison your rats? Those baits and powders and sprays are pesticides.Pesticide is the generic term for chemicals designed to kill organisms. Insecticides attack insects. Herbicides kill plants. Fungicides kill fungi and so on. The tip-off is the -cide, from the Latin for killer, as in infanticide and genocide.Do you think of pesticides as agricultural products? Last year, we dished them out pretty liberally at home -- 67 million pounds of the stuff, in fact.