PEOPLE Seaborg honored at IUPAC celebration 208 ACS National Washington,
Meeting D.C
lenn T. Seaborg, winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was presented with a set of 16 Madagascar postage stamps featuring Nobel Prize winners. The presentation was made by Roland F. Hirsch, past chairman of the ACS International Activities Committee, at the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry 75th anniversary reception held at the National Academy of Sciences in conjunction with the ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C. Each stamp in the set portrays two Nobel Prize winners. One stamp shows Seaborg and the British chemist Sir William Ramsay. Ramsay received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904. The stamps were selected as the most significant chemistry or physics postage stamps of 1993 by the Chemistry & Physics on Stamps Study Unit of the American Topical Association. Seaborg is codiscoverer of plutonium and nine other transuranium elements. The proposal to name element 106 seaborgium (Sg) in his honor was announced at the 207th ACS national meeting in San Diego (C&EN, March 14,
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page 24). The element was created in 1974 by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The IUPAC bureau, which meets next week in Antwerp, Belgium, will consider recommendations for naming element 106 and other transfermium elements. Seaborg told the reception that he had a 50-year association with IUPAC. He recounted how at first he was surprised and subsequently delighted to learn of the proposal to name element 106 after him. He quipped that when his daughter heard the news she exclaimed, "Oh my God, my father's dead!" explaining that no element had ever been named after a living person. The reception, which also honored overseas ACS meeting registrants, was sponsored by ACS's International Activities Committee and the National Research Council Board on Chemical Sciences & Technology. The reception followed a symposium on the "75th Anniversary of the Founding of IUPAC" organized by the Division of the History of Chemistry. Hirsch also presented a "certificate for the most significant chemistry or physics postage stamps of 1993" to Biclair H. G. Andrianantoandro, who is economic and commercial counselor at the Embassy of Madagascar. Michael Freemantle
ACS Congressional Fellowship Available Fall 1995 The Fellowship places an ACS member in a staff position in Congress to • Gain firsthand knowledge of the operation of the legislative branch of the federal government, • Make scientific and technical expertise available to the government, and • Forge links between the scientific and government communities. Applications due January 1, 1995. For more information contact: Ms. Caroline Trupp Department of Government Relations and Science Policy American Chemical Society 1155 Sixteenth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20036, (202) 872-4467. Applications consist of a letter of intent, a resume, and two letters of reference. Arrangements should be made to send the letters of reference directly to ACS. Candidates should contact ACS prior to submitting an application to determine the type of information needed in the letter of intent.
Seaborg displays postage stamp sheet depicting Nobel Prize winners. SEPTEMBER 12,1994 C&EN 57
