bioengineers can harness the organ­isms to consume waste at a fast enough rate, they might be able to remediate some of DOE's troublesome under­ground contaminant plumes. And un­like other biological remediation agents, Stevens says, they probably would not need to be fed.

Elizabeth Wilson

Arms control work wins scientists Nobel Prize Award of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize to the Pugwash Conferences on Science & World Affairs and to its president, Jo­seph Rotblat, honors 38 years of influ­ential arms control efforts by an inter­national group of scientists.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee stressed the group's "efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in inter­national politics, and in the longer run to eliminate such arms." But it also put Pugwash's activities in a larger con­text—emphasizing that they "are based on the recognition of the responsibility of scientists for their inventions."

The committee noted it is now 50 years since the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 40 years since issuance of "the Russell-Einstein Manifesto" that "laid the foun­dations for the Pugwash Conferences." The manifesto—which called on scien­tists to "assemble in conference to ap­praise the perils that have arisen as a re­sult of the development of weapons of

mass destruction, and to discuss a reso­lution"—was signed by Bertrand Rus­sell, Albert Einstein, and nine other not­ed scientists, including Rotblat.

The conferences take their name from the small fishing village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, which in 1957 hosted the first meeting, attended by 22 scientists from 10 nations, including the U.S. and Soviet Union. This was followed by a se­ries of meetings at sites around the world, with a growing number and di­versity of participants. Annual confer­ences now draw 125 to 250 people, but the more frequent workshops and symposia on specific topics generally involve 20 to 50 participants.

By mid-1995, there had been more than 200 Pugwash meetings with total attendance of more than 10,000. The or­ganization is based in London, with of­fices in Rome and Geneva. The U.S. Pugwash Committee is based at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge, Mass. There is also a Stu­dent Pugwash organization, based in Washington, D.C.

Pugwash's initial focus was on nu­clear arms, but activities have expand­ed to other international security is­sues, including chemical and biological warfare, trade in conventional weap­ons, and ethnic and regional conflict— as well as nonmilitary security issues such as technology transfer; resource, energy, and environmental problems; and sustainable development.

The Nobel committee notes that the conferences "have brought together scientists and decisionmakers to collab-

Institute of Medicine elects members with chemical ties A professor of chemistry and several other scientists working in chemically related fields are among 55 new mem­bers just elected to the Institute of Medicine. IOM—part of the National Academy of Sciences complex, togeth­er with the National Academy of Engi­neering and the National Research Council—now has a total active mem­bership of 519. Election to the institute honors contributions to health and medicine or related fields, such as so­cial and behavioral sciences, law, ad­ministration, and economics. The new members in chemically related areas are the following:

investigator, How­ard Hughes Medical Institute; and professor of chemistry and pharmacol­

ogy, University of California, San Di­ego, School of Medicine.

Arthur L. Beaud investigator, How­ard Hughes Medical Institute; and pro­fessor and acting chairman, department of molecular and human genetics, Bay­lor College of Medicine, Houston.

Helen M. Blau, professor, department of molecular pharmacology, Stanford University School of Medicine.

Les Ε. Rothman, vice chairman, Sloan-Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City.

Judith S. Stem professor of nutri­tion and internal medicine, depart­ment of nutrition, College of Agricul­tural & Environmental Sciences, Uni­versity of California, Davis.

Rotblat: operating on a shoestnng

orate across political divides on con­structive proposals/' Indeed, notes John P. Holdren of the University of Califor­nia, Berkeley, Pugwash meetings have contributed significantly to a series of nuclear arms control treaties, to the Bio­logical Weapons Convention of 1972, and to the global Chemical Weapons Convention of 1992. Holdren chairs the international Pugwash executive com­mittee and cochairs the U.S. Pugwash Committee, and he also serves on Presi­dent Clinton's Committee of Advisers on Science & Technology.

Pugwash was a unique, informal "back channel" for arms control talks during the Cold War, Holdren tells C&EN. Leading scientists from East and West—including government sci­ence advisers—and political and mili­tary figures could "get together off the record, float trial balloons, and find a way around obstacles."

Through the years, Rotblat has been "the most important figure in the Pug­wash work," the Nobel committee notes. Now 86 and a British citizen, the Polish-born physicist worked on the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. But he left the project months before the first bomb hit Hiroshima because he objected to building the bomb once it became clear Nazi Germany would not develop such a weapon.

Rotblat and Pugwash will get equal shares of the $1 million prize. The mon­ey is welcome, Holdren says, because Pugwash "operates on a shoestring," with an annual budget of about $400,000.

Richard Seltzer

OCTOBER 23,1995 C&EN 9