50, 100 and 150 Years Ago; August 2004; Scientific American Magazine; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

COLD WAR CASUALTY - "By a four to one vote the Atomic Energy Commission held J. Robert Oppenheimer to be a security risk and unemployable for any further atomic work in the national defense. In the Commission, dissent came from the scientist member of the jury. Henry D. Smyth asserted that Oppenheimer's continued employment would 'not endanger the common defense and security,' but on the contrary would 'continue to strengthen the United States.' His opinion presented in sharp focus the disagreement between scientists and the national administration over the present security system. The four members who condemned Oppenheimer based their decision on 'fundamental defects in his character,' and on his Communist associations, which they found 'have extended far beyond the tolerable limits of prudence and self-restraint' expected of a man in his position."

ORIGIN OF LIFE - "It is still true that with almost negligible exceptions all the organic matter we know is the product of living organisms. The almost negligible exceptions, however, are very important. It is now recognized that constant, slow production of organic molecules occurs without the agency of living things. If the origin of life is within the realm of natural phenomena, that is to imply that on other planets like the earth, life probably exists - life as we know it. - George Wald" [Editors note: Wald won the 1967 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.]