this growth in demand, industry would have to install at least the best available energy conservation technologies, which could increase energy efficiency 20 to 30%. But adoption of these technologies would require major capital investments, something DOE thinks is unlikely to happen. Energy costs still comprise only 2 to 8% of the operational costs of most energy-intensive industries. Since energy is not a major cost, energy conservation investments often receive relatively low priority in comparison to competing capital investment needs. That situation is likely to continue, DOE says, since only a few industrial sectors—such as chemicals, petroleum, and transportation equipment—are in a position to invest significant capital in energy conservation. •
Harold Urey dead at 86 The Nobel Prize has come to many scientists late in their careers when their creative juices were drying up, their most fertile years behind them. But Harold Clayton Urey's 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of deuterium came early, presaging a long and fruitful career. Last week, that career ended when Urey, 86, died at his home in La Jolla, Calif. Urey's inquisitive mind ranged over both the atomic and the astronomical realms, often harking back through time to the first stirrings of life on Earth, or to the birth of the solar system. But his single most notable discovery, made at Columbia University
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with George M. Murphy and Ferdinand G. Brickwedde, was deuterium. Urey had predicted that the residue from the distillation of liquid hydrogen should contain the heavy isotope. He was proved right in 1931, just eight years after receiving his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. The discovery led to the development of the hydrogen bomb. It also may prove to be the basis for unlimited energy from fusion. After this early triumph, Urey developed methods for separating the heavy isotopes of other elements. During World War II, the group he directed at the top-secret Manhattan Project facilitated the separation of uranium isotopes by gaseous diffusion. This work opened the door to the atomic bomb. After the war, after seeing his efforts channeled into what he regretfully called "a terrible weapon," Urey moved to the University of Chicago. There, he pursued more philosophi-
cally agreeable projects, such as studying the origin of the planets, and chemical evolution on Earth. Urey believed that the planets formed initially as cold, rather than molten, bodies. And his classic experiment with Stanley Miller showed that amino acids could form from simple gases thought to have been present in Earth's early atmosphere. Urey also developed an isotopic method that he used to determine ocean temperatures in past geologic ages. In 1958, Urey joined the University of California, San Diego. With the advent of the age of planetary exploration, he enthusiastically became involved in the study of the moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions. He also was a consultant on the Viking missions to Mars. In the past few years, a progressively worsening heart condition began to take its toll on Urey, an irrepressible man who cultivated orchids in his garden and gazed longingly at the moon. •
AAAS acts to halt decline in science education A series of actions designed to help in arresting a serious decline in U.S. science and engineering education is being undertaken by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. F. James Rutherford, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, will join AAAS after Jan. 20 as adviser on science education to the AAAS board of directors. In addition, the board has passed a resolution setting in motion initiatives that are part of an effort to make science and engineering education, and general scientific literacy, central concerns of AAAS in the 1980's. "The U.S. is working itself into a real jam" in science and engineering education, observed AAAS president Frederick Mosteller of Harvard's school of public health, in announcing the actions. The moves, announced last week in Toronto at the AAAS annual meeting, are a response to growing evidence that, for the past 15 years, there has been a shrinking of commitment in the U.S. to excellence in science, mathematics, and engineering. A report prepared last fall for the White House by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education made a case for such a decline, particularly in regard to the scientific literacy of the general population (C&EN, Nov. 10, 1980, page 37).
AAAS president-elect, Yale physicist D. Allan Bromley, notes that it's difficult to quantify the poor performance. But, he says, there is an anecdotal tiniformity across the country to suggest the problem is severe. AAAS won't be able to redress the problem, he says, but hopes to have a substantial impact. Rutherford, who was formerly assistant director for science education at NSF, will be helping the AAAS board to plan programs to combat the problem. The resolution passed by the board, among other things, directs the AAAS president to "convene a consultative conference of heads of affiliated societies to appraise the health and priority needs of science and engineering education in the U.S. in the 1980's." The American Chemical Society is one of more than 240 affiliated societies and academies of science. Also, the resolution directs that a major theme of the 1982 annual meeting of AAAS in Washington, D.C., be "Toward a National Commitment to Educational Excellence in Science and Engineering for All Americans." In addition, Mosteller says, AAAS plans to use its new magazine designed for the general public, Science 81, to create teaching materials to help science teachers in secondary schools, and especially benefit minority students and young women. •
