Oct 15 1976
From The Space Library
To criticisms of "basic" research, "whose practical applications no one can foresee," the New York Times in an editorial said the two Nobel Prizes in medicine for 1976 might have been designed to provide an answer and a rebuke. While Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg in the early 1960s was studying genetic variation in the susceptibility to disease of different people (a "seemingly abstruse topic," the Times noted), he found in the blood of an Australian aborigine a strange protein described as Australia Antigen, now usually called Hepatitis B surface antigen. Blood given for transfusions nowadays is regularly tested for this protein to prevent Hepatitis B infection, thus preventing thousands of blood recipients each year from being infected. The other Nobel prizewinner, Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek, while in New Guinea during the 1950s became interested in the so-called laughing disease, "kuru," that was destroying the Fore, an obscure Stone Age people. His work on that disease revealed a new type of slow-acting virus that could produce brain degeneration, and that might be "involved in multiple sclerosis and other major neurological diseases." The message for financiers and directors of research, said the Times, is that "in the long run nothing is more practical than basic studies" and that "basic research yields he richest dividends." (NYT 15 Oct 76)
Communications Satellite Corporation (ComSat) reported net income for the third quarter of 1976 of $7 607 000, down from last yr's thirdquarter net of $11 837 000. The decrease was the result of amounts placed in escrow under an FCC accounting and refund order of 16 June 1976; if the order had not been in effect, the quarter's net would have been $14 603 000. Although operating income dropped as a result of the escrow requirement, the wholly owned Comsat General Corp. for the first time had realized revenues for the entire period from both Marisat and Comstar programs; in the third quarter a yr ago, the subsidiary had reduced ComSat's net operating income by a penny per share. Operating expenses, including taxes, were $30 223 000 for the quarter, up from $24 997 000 for the third quarter of 1975; the increase was due to costs of the launches of INTELSAT IV-A, Marisat, and Comstar satellites. ComSat's gross operating revenues for the third quarter of 1976 totaled $36 260 000, an increase over last yr's third quarter total of $35 116 000; the escrow requirement had prevented the gross revenues from increasing more than $15 million over last yr's third quarter with the beginning of Marisat and Comstar services and continued growth in the number of circuits leased to customers of the INTELSAT global communications system. Half circuits leased at the end of Sept. 1976 numbered 4129, a 16% increase over the 3547 leased at the end of `Sept. 1975. Money put in escrow under the FCC order represented the difference between customer payments to ComSat under present rates, and the amounts based on lower rates that would be required under an FCC rate decision of 4 Dec. 1975. The rate decision was still under judicial review. (ComSat Release 76-16)
An enormous explosion in central Siberia that shook the world 68 yr ago might have been caused by the crash of a nuclear-powered spaceship from an alien planet, according to the Soviet news agency Tass, reported in the Washington Star. Tass quoted scientist Aleksey Zolotov, who had just returned from a survey of a remote river valley at Tunguska. On 30 June 1908, a blast estimated as up to 2000 times more powerful than the first atomic bomb had shaken measuring devices all over the world and had been heard nearly 1200 km away from Tunguska. Trees had been uprooted as far as 50 km from the site, and ground tremors had thrown to the ground horses that were pulling plows as far away as 380 km. Most scientists had attributed the explosion to the impact of a meteorite or comet with a mass of 10 million tons and measuring more than 90 meters across. Zolotov told Tass that his survey team had found higher than normal radioactivity in remnants of trees near the site; also taken were samples of permafrost soil. "Our investigation ... seems to confirm our assumption that what took place in the Tungus taiga was a nuclear explosion," Zolotov said. "It is from this point of view that we are exploring the possibility of the artificial origin of the Tungus cosmic body." Tass did' not give figures for the radiation study, nor did it identify Zolotov beyond saying he was a "noted Soviet scientist ... who has been studying the Tungus mystery for years." (W Star, 15 Oct 76, A-4)
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