RANDOM

edited by C
SAMPLES
H ONSTANCE OLDEN

The orchid world was and some orchid fans, including

thrilled in June to learn Sarasota taxonomist Eric Christen- Lasker Awards
of the discovery of a son, have cried foul. Christenson, a
glamorous new species former director of Selby’s micro- Two cell biologists have won
that grows in the remote propagation lab, says he learned this year’s Lasker award for
highlands of Peru. But now the about the flower last May from basic medical research: James
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) contacts in Peru and published it Rothman of New York City’s
is investigating whether a col- in the journal Orchids in July, with the Sloan-Kettering Institute, and
lector illegally brought the name Peruvianum. However, Kovach got Randy Schekman, a Howard
specimen into the U.S. in print first, so his stands as the official name. Hughes investigator at the
In early June, Michael Ko- Kovach refused to talk with Science but has University of California,
vach, an orchid grower in claimed that he had the proper documents. But Berkeley. Two emeritus pro-
Goldvein,Virginia, returned Christenson says no documentation was needed to fessors won the clinical re-
from northern Peru bearing a know that this orchid is “on top of the [endangered] search award, for developing
potted bloom he had list.” Bringing it to Selby, he says, was “like showing kidney dialysis: Willem J. Kolff
Disputed lady slipper.
bought near the “orchid up at a museum with an elephant tusk with fresh of the University of Utah, Salt
city” of Moyobamba. He brought it to the Marie Sel- blood dripping off the end.” Lake City, and Belding H.
by Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida, where ex- FWS officials won’t comment but did say that Scribner of the University of
perts identified it as a huge and glorious member of permits for highly endangered plants are typically Washington, Seattle.
the genus Phragmipedium, known as lady slipper or- not given to commercial growers like Kovach.Wesley Molecular biologist James
chids because of their distinctive pouch. Sel- Higgins, Selby’s director of systematics, says E. Darnell Jr. of Rockefeller
by raced the plant into print, naming it Orchid that Kovach faxed some documentation to University won a special

Downloaded from on March 27, 2016

Phragmipedium kovachii after Kovach, in a
special 17 June issue of its journal Selbyana. Fracas
The only hitch: Slipper orchids are on Ap-
pendix I of CITES, the endangered species conven-
tion, which means they are in great jeopardy and
shouldn’t be taken from their native lands.
Peruvian officials have reportedly complained,
the museum but won’t say what it was. achievement award for
Kovach and Selby are now awaiting the opening up the fields of RNA
verdict of FWS. (Maximum penalties for processing and cytokine sig-
violating CITES are a $100,000 fine or a year in naling, as well as for foster-
jail.) Meanwhile, orchid growers are hurrying to ing the development of oth-
commercialize what some call the most spectacu- er scientists.
lar orchid find of the century.

Navigating deftly through a gi-

Inaugurating what may be the first interdisciplinary research think ant chemical model of DNA,
tank in mainland China, scientists from around the world this month Iona Sole, a sixth grader of the
celebrated the opening of the Shanghai Institute of Advanced Studies future, can feel the pull of in-
(SIAS) with a seminar examining Chinese science and technology. tramolecular forces and the sur-
“The Chinese government has almost ignored basic research in faces of atoms as she swoops
favor of applied work,” said neuroscientist Yi Rao of Washington through space. Iona’s “adventure
University in St. Louis, one of SIAS’s two co-directors. The institute, learning” odyssey began when
a project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with financial sup- she entered the dome-shaped
port from the Max Planck Institute and the Volkswagenstiftung in Tangitrek, wearing a haptic exo-
Germany, aims to remedy the imbalance with an interdisciplinary skeleton that allows her to inter-
approach modeled after its near- act with the machine by touch, a
CREDITS: (TOP TO BOTTOM) MARIE SELBY BOTANICAL GARDENS; D. WALCZAK/KLEISER-WALCZAK

Chinese namesake in Princeton, New Jersey.

SIAS hopes such an atmosphere will
gimbaled harness, and an au-
tostereoscopic display.The DNA Iona witnesses birth of baby dino
Think Tank also attract Chinese-born scientists now
working abroad. According to Cao Cong
tour is part of Iona’s project on
the theoretical genetics of creat-
as she learns how birds evolved.

of the National University of Singapore, about 380,000 Chinese ing a winged horse. Next, she and engineers.Their report, 2020
studied abroad between 1978 and 1998, and only a third returned; journeys to ancient Greece, Visions, was presented last week
of those studying in the United States, only about 10% of new where she talks with lo- at the U.S. Department
Ph.D.s intend to go home. To lure more back, says SIAS co-director cal Synthespians. (Trans- Education of Commerce, which
Uli Schwartz, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Develop- lation from Greek can be Dreams for sponsored it along with
mental Biology in Tübingen, they will have to be accorded turned on as needed.) the Department of Edu-
Western-style academic freedoms—especially the freedom to Iona’s project can’t
2020 cation and the National
cross disciplinary boundaries. yet be seen in any classroom. Science Foundation. Commerce
The conference agenda eschewed the typical Chinese focus on She was created by Mas- spokesperson Marjorie Weisskohl
one topic by covering issues from genetic engineering to tradition- sachusetts computer graphics says the report, online at www.
al Chinese medicine. Schwartz says he was especially pleased to wizard Diana Walczak, as the star ta.doc.gov/Reports.htm#2020
see Chinese students asking pointed questions of speakers— of one scenario for future educa- Visions, aims to spark the imagi-
“something you hardly ever see” in China. tion created for the U.S. govern- nation of educators, technolo-
ment by 14 educators, artists, gists, and businesspeople.

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 297 27 SEPTEMBER 2002 2205