IT CAN happen to anyone. You go into a store, see an item you like the look
of, find that you have just enough money to pay for it and, when the clerk rings
it up, you realise you forgot to add on sales tax and can鈥檛 afford it.
That鈥檚 how Representative James Sensenbrenner felt when he saw the cost of
the Spallation Neutron Source, a $1.3 billion toy for materials
physicists being built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. It
seems any construction in Tennessee comes with a sales and usage tax, and the
state was going to stick the US government with a $30 million tax for the
privilege of building the facility there.
This did not sit well with Sensenbrenner, even though $30 million is a
mere 2.3 per cent of the project鈥檚 cost鈥攁 bargain as sales taxes go. He
figured that American taxpayers had done enough for the state of Tennessee by
simply siting a major construction and research project (also 鈥渏obs鈥�) there. An
additional tax, no matter how small, was unconscionable. So he insisted that if
he was to throw his support behind the project鈥攁nd as chairman of the
House of Representatives Science Committee, that support could be
crucial鈥攈e demanded that Tennessee lift its surtax on the project.
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Earlier this year, the Tennessee state legislature passed a law exempting the
project from sales tax, giving Sensenbrenner the right to brag that he had
delivered that most desirable of all commodities to the American taxpayer: a
bargain.
HERE in the US, those who oppose genetically modified foods just don鈥檛 seem
to get the breaks. The month of April produced two events that greased the
wheels for gene engineers.
First, their arch-enemy Monsanto announced the sequencing of just about the
entire genome of rice. The work was done for the company by scientists at the
University of Washington. Agricultural scientists predicted that better strains
of rice for the world鈥檚 poor will soon follow, while Monsanto says it plans to
make the sequence information public, blunting claims of corporate God-playing.
And experts say the code will also help classical breeders鈥攖he 鈥済ood guys鈥�
in the eyes of the anti-GM crowd鈥攖o develop better strains of rice.
The next day, the high priests of the scientific community in Washington at
the National Academy of Sciences issued a report saying there is still no
evidence that genetically engineered crops are dangerous to people, plants or
animals. The academy did say regulations need to be tighter to make sure things
stay that way. There were claims that the panel was packed with friends of
biotech, but that claim fell somewhat short, given that at least one outspoken
environmentalist, usually critical of GM foods, voted with the panel to make the
conclusions unanimous.
THE National Aeronautics and Space Administration has always been sensitive
to criticism that it spends a boatload of money for a modicum of research
results. So the agency has taken great pains over the years to point out the
commercial 鈥渟pin-offs鈥� from space flight. What would the world be without the
powdered fruit drink Tang, Teflon and Velcro鈥攑ay no attention to the
naysayers who would suggest that these products would have been developed with
or without NASA鈥檚 help.
But the latest spin-off claim is truly breathtaking. NASA officials have
awarded their 1999 Commercial Invention of the Year prize to a research team
from NASA鈥檚 Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for its work on
thermoplastics. These are materials that offer protection from ultraviolet
radiation, something that鈥檚 important when you鈥檙e zipping around outside the
Earth鈥檚 protective ozone layer.
So just where does NASA expect these thermoplastics to find commercial use?
Lipstick. Seems there鈥檚 a great demand for UV-protective lip coatings. All I can
say is 鈥減ucker up鈥�.
