CurtC
5th November 2003, 01:55 PM
If you don't receive the weekly What's New column by Bob Park with the American Physical Society, you're missing out. It comes out each Friday, and the one from Oct 31 had this jewel:2. MICRO-IMPORTANCE: PROTEIN-CRYSTAL-GROWTH IN MICROGRAVITY. In a review conducted at NASA's request, the National Research Council concluded on Mar 1, 2000 that,"The enormous investment in protein crystal growth on the shuttle and Mir has not led to a single unique result." On Wednesday, in a Senate Commerce and Science Committee hearing, an obscure physicist testified that a crystal, allegedly grown in space, was found to have been grown in
Australia (WN 21 Feb 03). In spite of the NRC finding and this fraud, a former astronaut continued to fly protein crystal growth experiments on the shuttle, including the final Columbia mission, and is listed on research planned for the ISS. "And they still haven't grown one crystal that hasn't been grown on Earth?" Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) asked. "Not one," the physicist replied.
http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=979
Suspecting something was up with the phrase "obscure physicist," I went to the referenced site and had quite a laugh.
Australia (WN 21 Feb 03). In spite of the NRC finding and this fraud, a former astronaut continued to fly protein crystal growth experiments on the shuttle, including the final Columbia mission, and is listed on research planned for the ISS. "And they still haven't grown one crystal that hasn't been grown on Earth?" Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) asked. "Not one," the physicist replied.
http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/witnesslist.cfm?id=979
Suspecting something was up with the phrase "obscure physicist," I went to the referenced site and had quite a laugh.