NEWS OF THE WEEK Kwak says. The project was also granted a railroad access, about 1,000 acres of essentially free land, and access to a wastewater treatment plant. Total cost to the state reportedly represented the equivalent of a $7.1 million grant. More important to SKC is that a southern state such as Georgia is 'Very attractive" in terms of distance to customers and record of relatively good relations with labor unions. Nonetheless, Georgia's "aggressiveness" in meeting the company's needs also played an important role. The company reviewed conditions in 16 states before settling on Georgia, Kwak says. During the initial stage of development, SKC will temporarily send about 50 staff members to the U.S. to set up the operation. However, the company plans to staff the plant primarily with local employees as soon as possible. Subsequent investments beyond the
initial $250 million will depend on market conditions, Kwak says. The company predicts that Covington will be home to the world's largest polyester film plant and that other types of films besides polyester will eventually be produced there. The Sunkyong Group, one of South Korea's top five conglomerates, is made up of 33 firms. Group company Yukong Ltd. is the country's largest oil refiner as well as the group's largest firm. The Sunkyong Group employs 22,000 people worldwide and had sales of about $30 billion in 1995. This is not SKC's first U.S. venture. Two years ago, its subsidiary SKC America acquired a plant in Sunnyvale, Calif., that makes microfilms and microfiches used for information storage in libraries. That plant—not so big, Kwak says—supplies 60% of U.S. needs. Jean-Franqois Tremblay
On-line service to supply science news The age of cyberspace more fully enters the world of science journalism in midMay when a new on-line news service becomes available, free, to reporters and the public around the world. The service is called "EurekAlert!" and will supply scientific journal papers to reporters on a so-called embargoed basis—that is, before publication. The general public—including researchers and science educators—will be able to get what amounts to the second half of EurekAlert: access to scientific news provided by the myriad research organizations, universities, and companies around the US. The service's primary sponsor is the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and its World Wide Web address will be http://www. eurekalert.org. Test runs and demonstrations were under way last week at AAAS headquarters in Washington, D.C., with the hardware located at Stanford University. The service was conceived last year by public information officers David Salisbury of Stanford University and Dennis Meredith of Duke University, motivated by the rising costs of on-line technical information services. Science reporters currently can access embargoed journal papers by requesting such service from a journal or its news service. A list of available pre8
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publication articles is usually sent via e-mail to "subscribers," who then receive by facsimile whatever articles they wish to select. EurekAlert opens up the system more widely. EurekAlert will essentially be a onestop access site for journalists. The computer screen will show a list of journals, and a reporter—who will get a private password—will select from the list. Each journal will then make an individual decision, as it does now, on whether to grant that journalist access. The papers will not be available to the general public. Journals expected to sign on early are
Communications, "We will ask each public information officer for 50-word summaries of their news releases. The releases will contain a link to the home page of their institutions. The home page will then have the complete releases." The ACS News Service, which already provides news releases on-line on its home page, is evaluating possible participation. "We most likely will participate," says ACS News Director Marv D. Coyner. Cooper says EurekAlert will ultimately be self-supporting. It was launched with the help of grants from Monsanto and Genentech. It is hoped that organizations posting news on the web sites will bear all costs as part of their public relations budgets. The service has international aspirations, Cooper notes. "We have been invited to demonstrate EurekAlert to the European Science Communications & Information Network, which represents the major research institutions in Northern Europe. We plan to approach all the major science journalism associations in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia about joining." Wil Lepkowski
Mass destruction arms spread threatens U.S.
The spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to rogue nations and terrorist groups is a major threat to the U.S. in the post-Cold War era, asserts the Pentagon in a new report. "The proliferation of these horrific weapons presents a grave and urgent Science, Nature, the New England Journal risk to the U.S. and our citizens, allies, of Medicine, Astrophysical Journal, and and troops abroad," says Defense SecProceedings of the National Academy of Sci- retary William J. Perry. "Reducing this ences USA. No American Chemical Soci- risk is an absolute priority of the U.S." ety journals are yet under consideration. The threat assessment—"ProliferaRobert H. Marks, director of ACS tion: Threat & Response"—is the folpublications, says ACS would partici- low-on to the Pentagon's annual Cold pate "if [EurekAlert] thought it worth- War publication, "Soviet Military Powwhile for us to. We would, of course, er," and contains unclassified docuhave to make suitable arrangements mentation of the secret nuclear, biologwith the publishers and authors." He ical, and chemical weapons programs notes that ACS will soon make avail- of North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Libya. It able on its WWW home page abstracts also reiterates concerns about China's of selected papers before publication in past sales to Iran of chemical-warfareits journals. related materials and nuclear and misFor the public access portion of the sile technology. network, U.S. organizations will be Written and released before the recent able to supply news, for a fee. Explains revelation of Russia's giant underground Ellen Cooper of the AAAS Office of military complex in the Ural Mountains,
