October 25-November 1, 1999
"The most striking revelation is not the confirmation that Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were spies, conclusive though that evidence now is. It is rather how many spies there were."
-- Historian John Lewis Gaddis, in his review of John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr's "Venona: Soviet Espionage in America in the Stalin Era," The Moscow Times, Oct. 8, 1999
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"Thanks to the rains in September, I think that the fall color will be no worse or no better than usual."
-- School of Forestry & Environmental Studies lecturer Bruce Larson, "Falling for Foliage," Connecticut Post, Oct. 12, 1999
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"We can now teach people to use [laparoscopic surgery] equipment and guide them while they do their first few surgeries -- from thousands of miles away. I can go everywhere."
-- School of Medicine professor James Rosser, Jr., about a virtual reality surgery simulator, "Surgery 101 with TV, Black-Eyed Peas," The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL), Oct. 5, 1999.
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"The core symptom [of autism] is social inability. Empathy is a core ingredient of social action."
-- Director of the Neuroimaging Research Program in Autism at Yale Robert T. Schultz, "In Another World: Yale Scientists Explore the Social Isolation of Autism," New Haven Register, Oct. 7, 1999.
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'The weight of Ecuador's crushing debt on its domestic budget violates the human rights of Ecuador's citizens -- rights recognized by both the world community and by Ecuador itself. Human rights do not receive as much publicity as political rights, such as the right to vote or to be free from torture, but are equally recognized by international law."
-- School of Law student Avi Kumin, in his editorial "Debt Burdens Need Relief; Ecuador's Poverty Should Concern All the World," The San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 6, 1999.
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"One species is probably important in transmitting [the West Nile virus] between birds, and another species is probably important in transmitting it from birds to humans."
-- Epidemiologist Durland Fish, "Top Mosquito Expert Says West Nile Virus Outbreak Could Have Been Prevented," CBS News, Oct. 4, 1999.
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"Shakespeare is not only the wisest and most powerful writer who ever lived, he is also the best entertainer. He breaks through even in the worst productions."
-- English professor Harold Bloom, "Shakespeare By The Book," St. Louis Post- §
"Women are where the buck stops in reproductive health, and women in developing countries don't have access to reproductive health services and education that enable them to make choices about the number and spacing of their children."
-- School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Lecturer Fred Meyerson, "World Population Hits Six Billion," National Geographic, October 12, 1999.
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"The question to ask is, how important is it to maintain a constant body weight with increased age if you're healthy? As a culture we're obsessed with not gaining weight. But if you're a normal weight and otherwise healthy, is a 5- or even 10-pound weight gain in midlife really all that bad?"
-- School of Epidemiology and Public Health Research Scientist Loretta Dipietro, "Can 'Middle Age Spread' Be Shed?; Experts Say Widening Waistlines Are Not an Irreversible Fact of Midlife," The Washington Post, Oct. 12, 1999.
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"A company -- a major American company -- has now said it markets a deadly, addictive product. That places special responsibilities, especially when it's kids who begin. So those companies -- the tobacco companies -- have a lot more work to do to make sure that people do not become addicted."
-- School of Medicine Dean David Kessler, "Dr. Kessler: 'Philip Morris is Saying That Their Product That They Sell is Addictive,'" CNN Morning News, Oct. 13, 1999.
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"Many least developed countries are not on an efficient path. Brazil and Pakistan represent prime examples of growth at the 5 to 6 per cent annual level, in the presence of worsening poverty. And there are many other cases where unnecessarily high rates of growth are required to reduce poverty."
-- Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics Gustav Ranis, in his Letter to the Editor, Financial Times, Oct. 11, 1999.
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"I told [the members of the men's basketball team] Yale was going to be a competitive environment and to prepare themselves. The attitude is starting to change and we want to be sure we continue to do that and continue to strive."
-- Yale men's basketball coach James Jones, "New Eras at Yale: Elis hope to surprise rivals," New Haven Register, Oct. 14, 1999.
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"I think money is a strong incentive [for using prisoners in drug trials], and the question is, can you create guidelines that are not vague like the ones we have now and that truly protect the interests of inmates in clinical trials."
-- Internal Medicine/AIDS professor Dr. Frederick Altice, "Forum to Discuss Protecting Prison Inmates as Drug Test Subjects," The Boston Globe, Oct. 11, 1999.
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"There are no health risks from head lice. Psychological stress is more likely. Head lice are taken to be a sign of neglect. That's not the case."
-- Medical entomologist Glen Scoles, "A Louse in the House: Anyone Can Get Head Lice; and Wrong Treatment Is Making Them More Resistant," New Haven Register, Sept. 30, 1999.
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"Any infected newborn should be identified and offered treatment, but we have to make sure people are prepared to deal with a positive test. The last thing you want to do is drive a wedge between the mother, the baby and the health care provider."
-- School of Medicine lecturer Dr. Peter Selwyn, "Newborn HIV Tests Criticized," New Haven Register, Oct. 8, 1999.
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"It seems as if it's not all that hard to get someone to vote if you just knock on their door and ask them nicely."
-- Political science professor Alan Gerber, "Slice of Life," The Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 8, 1999.
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"We're talking little sticks of dynamite here. There are incipient megachurches taking root, and they're going to come out of the non-denominational neighborhood."
-- Divinity School researcher Peter Dobkin Hall, about the explosive growth of storefront churches' congregations, "Finding Jesus at the Strip Mall," Connecticut Post, Oct. 9, 1999.
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"Psychosis is not a defense in and of itself. There are schizophrenics who stop at stop signs. You're going to have to show [Andrew Goldstein] had a pretty severe psychosis at the time, and he didn't understand what he was doing."
-- Professor of psychiatry Dr. Howard Zonana, "Jury's Heavy Burden: Considering Insanity in Subway-Pushing Case," The New York Times, Oct. 11, 1999.
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"Until recent times, European countries didn't have laws that stopped cartels; in fact, they had laws that encouraged cartels. But today, virtually every country is coming around to the view that the more competition, the better the economy."
-- John M. Olin Professor of Law and Economics George L. Priest, "Tearing Down the Facade of 'Vitamins Inc.,'" The New York Times, Oct. 10, 1999.
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"One can simply look at [the genetic sequence of proteins] and have a fairly good idea whether they're going to be secreted from the cell, or retained in the cell. So [research by Guenter Blobel] has broad impact on the study of new proteins that are coming out of genome sequencing projects."
-- Professor of genetics Arthur Horwich, "Guenter Blobel is Awarded a Nobel Prize For His Research in the 1970s," National Public Radio, Oct. 11, 1999.
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"I can't think of anyone more deserving [of a Nobel Prize] than Guenter [Blobel]. There is this unbelievable substance to his scientific work, which can be measured not only in terms of what he has done but by the number of young scientists who have passed through his lab and become important scientists in their own right. In scientific culture, that's what immortality is."
-- School of Medicine professor Ira Mellman, "Researcher of Proteins Wins Nobel; His Findings Have Many Biotech Uses," The Washington Post, Oct. 12, 1999.
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"The disruptions and inhumanities of Nyerere's program, however serious for its victims, were not in the same league as those inflicted by Stalin. Even so, the ujamma campaign was coercive and occasionally violent. It proved, moreover, a failure, ecologically as well as economically."
-- Agronomist James C. Scott, "Julius Nyerere of Tanzania Dies; Preached African Socialism to the World," The New York Times, Oct. 15, 1999.
Dispatch, Oct. 10, 1999.