Editorial

This issue of the Newsletter contains the call for Papers for the XVII Congress and General Assembly of the IUCr to be held in Seattle, Washington, USA, from August 8 to 17, 1996. The deadline for abstract submission is February 15, 1996. Because Newsletter distribution in certain parts of the world continues to be unpredictable, if you receive this issue after the deadline for abstract submission, please contact the Congress Secretariat in Buffalo immediately (e-mail : iucr_inquirers@hwi.buffalo.edu or FAX: 716 852-4846). The most recent information concerning the scientific program and local organization is available on WWW.

In order to encompass the extraordinary scope of the field of crystallography today, including theory, instrumentation, application and analysis, three keynote addresses will be presented in parallel each morning and seven microsymposia will be scheduled in parallel each morning and afternoon. In addition, a special series of lunch time lectures will be given by Nobel Laureates.

Each microsymposium will be of two and one-half hours duration and will be composed of four to six invited lectures. This will leave a half hour to be reserved for two or three presentations to be drawn from the contributed papers. Every effort is being made to ensure that the final program will have international composition and participation by young scientists. Selection of two or three contributions from submitted abstracts should make it possible to achieve this balance.

Because sources of support for the meeting are very limited, available funds will be used to assist student attendees and invited participants from economically disadvantaged countries. Information concerning application for support is on the Web. No person will be permitted to present more than one talk. Much of the business of the Program Committee will be conducted by e-mail and all of the abstracts will be placed on the WWW as soon as possible after the abstracts are received.

Tables of the complete list of keynote speakers, microsymposia topics, chairs and co-chairs appear in the Call for Papers. At the time this Newsletter was being drafted, 21 of the 24 keynote speakers had accepted the invitation to lecture and invitations to the over 200 session chairs and co-chairs had been extended. The chairs and co-chairs, in consultation with the Program Committee, will develop an oral program, taking into consideration the hundreds of suggestions for speakers and topics submitted by the international community of crysta1lographers. Once the invited program is set, it will be posted on the Web.

As of press time, nine Nobel Laureates: Bertram Brockhouse, Johann Deisenhofer, Herbert Hauptman, Robert Huber, Jerome Karle, John Kendrew, William Lipscomb, Hartmut Michel and Clifford Shull, have accepted invitations to present lunch time lectures on the Past, Present, and Future of Crystallography.

In the grand scheme of things, the field of diffraction is relatively young, but with each passing year, we lose path finders, teachers, and friends who have enriched our lives and our science. It is with regret that we report the recent deaths of Arthur J. C. Wilson, UK (1914-1995), author of "X-Ray Optics", editor of Acta Cryst., "Wilson" of the Wilson Plot, Vice-president of the IUCr from 1979-81; David Shoemaker, USA (1920-1995), structure of metals and zeolites, ACA President, 1970; Yuri Struchkov, Russia (1926-1995), inorganic structure, world's most prolific author, Vice-president of IUCr from 1993-95; Bea Fairchild, USA, fiber diffraction, sickle cell hemoglobin; Don Chodosh, USA (1953-1995), inorganic structures, software development, entrepeneur, and corporate sponsor of the ACA; and Jairo H. Arevalo USA (1960-1995), vibrant, enthusiastic, endearing and highly productive, macromolecular crystallographer lost far too soon.

Correction

The text for an advertisement for "Crystallography Reports", a journal of the Russian Academy of Science, published by Maik Nauka, erroneously stated that the journal is published in cooperation with the ACA. Although the ACA has taken other actions in support of Russian Crystallography, it is not contributing in any substantial way, financial or in kind, to the publication of the Russian Journal of Crystallography. We apologize for any distress this error may have caused Maik Nauka, the ACA or the AIP.

In the midst of so much pessimism about the future of science and its funding, Arthur Kornberg offers the following advice in an editorial in Science (269, September 1995):

"Would I recommend a career in science to my grandchildren? Emphatically yes! Science is unique among all human activities - unlike law, business, art, or religion - in its identification with progress. Rich or poor, science is great! To frame a question and arrive at an answer that opens a window to yet another question, and to do this in the company of like-minded people with whom one can share the thrill of unanticipated and extended vistas, is what science is all about. That is what will sustain us in the days and years ahead."

And as a computer illiterate who is committed to putting the abstracts of the XVII Congress of the IUCr on WWW, I cannot resist offering this quote from Robert F. Kidd, Director of Development of Allen Press, Inc. in Lawrence Kansas, from the CESSE Fall Newsletter.

"The Internet is like teenage sex: a lot of big talk, great expectations, little experience, and very little skill. And it looks like everyone is doing it -except you."