ment was reached on bailout conditions with South Korea. IMF—an agency backed by the world's developed nations including several European countries, Ja pan, and the U.S.—makes its funds avail able only after potential recipients agree to conservative and open financial and eco nomic policies. On the other hand, the economic problems will most likely make protectionist moves tempting to some countries. In addition to Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea, the other members of APEC are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malay sia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Tai wan, and the U.S. George Peaff andJean-François Tremblay
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Calarco: extremely important move
tors' International Trade Committee, agrees. "Nearly one-third of all chemical transactions are international in nature, so this agreement is extremely important to our industry," he says. Calarco notes that more than $500 bil lion worth of chemical products are trad ed through the world economy on an an nual basis. Many U.S. chemical companies, especially petrochemical producers, have committed to large production invest ments in the various countries of APEC. A consensus of chemical industry rep resentatives within the APEC countries pegs the proposed tariffs to top out at 5 to 6% for chemicals under the new initia tive. But any APEC tariff proposals would be enforced on a voluntary basis by its members. Some APEC members have tar iffs on chemicals of more than 75%, mainly in those countries where the in dustry is in its infancy, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Those countries have long objected to the low ering of tariffs until their chemical sec tors mature. Japan's chemical tariffs are already within APEC's proposed range, as are many of the tariffs on chemicals destined for Australia and the U.S. "There will not be too much action to be taken by the Japanese," says Tadao Fukuda, head of the international affairs office at the Japa nese Chemical Industry Association. A possible wild card in the APEC trade initiatives is the economic tumult several of its member countries have endured dur ing 1997. The International Monetary Fund has already approved loans to Indo nesia and Thailand to repair their ailing economies. And just last week, an agree
FTC okays Dow's Sentrachem deal With one stipulation, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has cleared Dow Chemical's purchase of South Africa's Sentrachem. The stipulation: that the combined company divest its chelates operations, which account for about 20% of the sales of Sentrachem's wholly owned U.S. subsidiary Hampshire Chemical, Nashua, N.H. That obstacle has just been resolved with the sale by Sentrachem of the chelates business to Dutch producer Akzo Nobel, which currently imports small volumes of chelating agents into the U.S. The purchase includes a production plant in Lima, Ohio, that currently employs 42 people who will transfer to the Dutch company. For Dow, the FTC decision allows it to wrap up, perhaps within a week, its $480 million purchase of Sentrachem of Johannesburg (C&EN, Aug. 11, page 9). That includes the remainder of Hampshire, which Sentrachem acquired two years ago. According to William S. Stavropoulos, Dow's president and chief executive officer, "Sentrachem has strong businesses in agricultural chemicals and specialty chemicals that offer an excellent fit with our own portfolio." The problem, as FTC saw it, was that the combination of Dow and Hampshire would have combined two of only three U.S. producers of chelating agents used in cleaners, pulp and paper, water treatment, photography, and various other applications. The third company is Ciba Specialty Chemicals.
Dow's chemical division manufactures chelates in Freeport, Texas. Hampshire produces chelates in Nashua and in Deer Park, Texas, and chelate intermediates in Lima. Between them, Dow and Hampshire control more than 70% of North American chelate sales of about $140 million annually. Thus, FTC's conclusion that the merger could substantially lessen competition in production of the compounds and likely lead to unilateral price increases. Akzo Nobel plans to build a new plant at the Lima site to make a variety of chelating agents, including ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA), diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA), and their salts. Construction is expected to be completed in two to three years. The Dutch company already makes chelating agents in Sweden and the Netherlands, and says the acquisition of the Hampshire Chemical operations makes it "the world's principal chelate producer." Patricia Layman
Science board calls for research priorities study Once again, a major body of scientists and engineers—this time the National Science Board (NSB)—has tackled the vexing problem of determining whether some areas of research and development are getting too much government support, while others are getting too little. And once again the results are the same: Someone needs to figure out how to make such a determination. Last week, the board, chaired by Stanford University chemistry professor Richard N. Zare, issued its long-awaited position paper on establishing funding priorities within the government's $72 billion R&D budget. Basically, the report concludes the current system for coordinating federal R&D efforts is not working very well. In the report, NSB "recommends further study of priority-setting methodologies involving appropriate stakeholders." The board believes that "this task is of paramount importance to the future health of U.S. science and technology. It should be undertaken to ensure the continued flow of wide-ranging benefits to society from federal investments in science and engineering research." The NSB effort was born of considerDECEMBER 8, 1997 C&EN 7
n e w s of t h e w e e k able agitation over what it saw as the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy's (OSTP) poor stewardship of the R&D coordination process. Under Zare's leadership, the board has attempted to be more proactive in fulfilling its original charter to be a critic of national research priorities. But it faced a delicate problem: maintaining goodwill with OSTP. It was widely known, but never publicly admitted, that OSTP Director John H. Gibbons, who prefers to do his priority setting behind closed doors, was not enthusiastic about the board's enterprise. Still, Zare appointed board member Ian M. Ross, former chairman of AT&T Bell Laboratories, to head the committee that produced the report. The committee spent several months shaping words that would sound the alarm but not offend. Zare tells C&EN that the right apparatus already exists within the White House to do the coordinating. OSTP and the National Economic Council both work with the Office of Management & Budget in deciding how much will be spent in certain scientific fields, such as chemistry, computer sciences, physics, or medicine. But as Zare says, "No one yet knows how to do it between and across disciplines" within those broad fields. The paper consists of four parts. The first painstakingly tries to differentiate between research and development. The second reviews changes in the R&D political climate that have occurred since the end of the Cold War. The third addresses the dilemma of actually setting priorities, and the fourth reviews methodologies that have been or could be used in priority setting—none terribly successful or seriously attempted. But without specifying who should do it, the board says a new and serious study should be undertaken. And the board says it will be watching the process closely. This paper, says Zare, "is not the final word nor the end product of this process. It is meant to encourage much-needed dialogue among appropriate stakeholders." A spokesman for OSTP says the report is welcome. "We're glad there are other people there to join the chorus and say we need a more focused R&D policy. Good. Let's link arms." NSB calls its effort a "working paper"; the paper is available at the National Science Foundation web site (http://www. nsf.gov/home/nsb/document.htm). Wil Lepkowski 8 DECEMBER 8, 1997 C&EN
evidence that wormlike features in ALH84001 are caused by a buildup of the gold and palladium coating applied to samples before they're observed with a scanning electron microscope. The Bradley group, which has been a New evidence suggests that the nanome- prominent critic of the McKay group's ter-scale, wormlike structures found in interpretation, also includes geological martian meteorite ALH84001 are merely scientists Ralph P. Harvey at Case Westartifacts from experimental processing, ern Reserve University, Cleveland, and Harry Y. McSween Jr. of the University of rather than fossilized microbes. The detailed argument in support of Tennessee, Knoxville. Such artifacts, which have been recthe evidence is presented by John P. Bradley, research scientist at MVA Inc., ognized before by the scientific commuNorcross, Ga., and adjunct materials sci- nity, grow larger with longer coating ence and engineering professor at Geor- times that produce thicker metal layers. gia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, and Recently, emeritus geological sciences his colleagues [Nature, 390, 454 professor Robert L. Folk at the University (1997)]. It is countered by an equally de- of Texas, Austin, himself one of the protailed rebuttal [page 455] from David S. ponents of the nanobacteria hypothesis, McKay, scientist at the National Aeronau- warned about the danger of "the development of nanobacterialooking artifacts caused by gold coating of times more than one minute" [J. Sediment. Res., 67, 583 (1997)]. Bradley says by imaging the meteorite sample at different angles, the wormlike structures can be seen poking out of the side, "like a sheath of papers in which a few pages are sticking up on edge." Tubular structures: processing artifacts or martian NASA scientist Everett K. nanofossils? Gibson Jr., one of the authors on the original martian life tics & Space Administration's Johnson paper, counters that these structures are difSpace Center in Houston, and other ferent than those interpreted by his group members of the group that originally pro- as nanobacteria fossils. "We were aware of posed the famous rock held evidence for the features Bradley was talking about for several years," Gibson says. "We felt in no martian life. When McKay and colleagues first put way were they related to the others." Not only are the features his group atforth their interpretation of ALH84001 data [Science, 273, 924 (1996)], they tributes to fossilized remains larger than based part of their argument for martian the artifacts, he says, but an uncoated imlife on the identification of microscopic age presented by his group shows feawormlike features, which they conjec- tures that Bradley and coworkers say is tured were fossilized remains of attributed only to the lab artifacts. nanobacteria. Both Bradley and Gibson say such deNanobacteria themselves are the cen- bate is an indication of a healthy scientifter of some controversy. These putative ic process. The technological and scienorganisms, on the order of tens or hun- tific advances that come from the investidreds of nanometers in length or diame- gation will aid searches for life in future ter, are believed by some scientists to ex- Mars missions, they say. ist in teeming quantities on Earth. How"Whether we're right or wrong—and ever, others dispute the very existence of we think we're right—the scientific comnanobacteria, saying there's simply not munity is going to win on this," Gibson enough space inside such a small organ- says. Echoes Bradley: "In many ways it ism for the fundamental chemistry of life shows that science in America is alive to take place. and well." Bradley and colleagues say they have Elizabeth Wilson
Meteorite worms: Martian nanofossils or lab gunk?
