From the President
Although this time of year is normally considered to be the "silly season", there is a serious issue to which I would like to draw your attention. This is our subscription to the IUCr. In the past this has been paid on our behalf by the Royal Society directly to the IUCr to cover our membership at Category 5 (meaning 5 delegates to the IUCr). The only other country in this category is the U.S.A. However, the Royal Society now wishes to change the arrangements by making the BCA the adhering body to the IUCr and at the same time cut its contributions to less than 49% of Category 4 membership. The BCA Council will soon have to grapple with this issue and decide, for example, if we should drop to Category 4 or remain at Category 5. It would be helpful therefore if you would e-mail me your views on this so that Council can take them into account.
You will all by now be aware that the Government has substantially increased the science budget, and if this turns out to be a true increase, it must be welcome to us all. Of course, we still have to see the exact conditions attached, but given the multidisciplinary nature of Crystallography it is likely that many of us should benefit from what appears to be the first serious increase in funding in many years. At least I hope this is the case.
The arrangements for the Glasgow IUCr meeting are now proceeding rapidly, with the major elements of the programme already determined. I believe that the programme should have something for everyone and the IUCr meeting promises to be one of the largest scientific meetings next year in Europe. It is not too early to begin thinking about coming to Glasgow! Recently the BCA Council decided to institute a new category of membership, the Honorary Membership. I am pleased to say that Council has now conferred this on Professor Bruce Forsyth, Professor Aaron Klug, Professor Max Perutz and Dr. Ron Jenkins.
Finally, it is a pleasure to congratulate Keith Bowen on recently being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Judith Howard on her Senior Fellowship Award of the EPSRC.
Mike Glazer
Oxford
From the BCA Administrative Secretary
Printed Format. :
The tenth edition, WDC-10, has now been printed, copies may be purchased
from the BCA Administrative Secretary (see address below) for £10
each, which includes packing and postage within the UK, outside the UK add
an extra £2. Cheques should be made payable to: British
Crystallographic Association
On-line access.
WDC-10 is available on-line at the IUCr website at
http://www.iucr.org and its
world-wide mirror sites, where you can find the more general form of enquiry. Two simpler methods are also provided, to search by family name look at:
http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/docs/wdc.htm
to search by subject try:
http://www.iucr.org/iucr-top/docs/wdcs.htm
(and corresponding files at mirror sites)
Updates.
The World Wide Directory is updated periodically. Crystallographers with an
entry receive the free quarterly IUCr newsletter. If you are in
the Directory, but do not receive the IUCr
newsletter, please contact the BCA Administrative Secretary (address below).
BCA (non-student) members who are not listed in the Directory can request
an entry form from the Administrative Secretary, preferably an electronic one, from email:
BCA Administrative Secretary [email protected]
or write for a paper one to: Dr. Stephanie Harris,
BCA Administrative Secretary, P.O.Box 171, WORCESTER, WR4 0YE, UK
Paper application forms for BCA membership can be obtained by writing
to the BCA Administrative Secretary, (address above).
If you have access to the Internet you can find a membership form on-line at
URL
http://gordon.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/BCA/admin/member.html
This form should be printed, completed, and returned to the Administrative
Secretary with either a cheque for your fees, a credit card payment form or
a Standing Order form for your bank. (These are all accessible on the Internet
from the URL above)
Members are reminded that fees will
increase on 1 Jan 1999 to £15 for ordinary members.
Rates for other categories of member were given by the Treasurer in his article on page 3 of the June 98 issue of 'Crystallography News', which is now available on the Internet at
http://gordon.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/BCA/CNews/Jun98/pages.html#p3
The International Centre for Diffraction Data takes pleasure in announcing
that
Dr. Herbert Göbel, Siemens AG, ZT MF 7, Otto Hahn Ring 6,
München, Germany, has been selected to receive the J.D. Hanawalt Award
for excellence in the field of X-ray Powder Diffraction.
The J.D. Hanawalt Award is presented every three years for important, recent
contributions to the field of X-ray powder diffraction. The award consists
of a citation and a cash gift of $1,000. Dr. Göbel will submit an
abstract and present a paper on the work being recognized at the 47th Annual
Denver X-ray Conference in Colorado Springs, CO, U.S.A. to be held August 3
- 7th 1998. The presentation of the award will take place at the same
conference.
The editorial welcomes the Government's investment plans: £400m in new projects through the research councils, £300m in Universities through a new Infrastructure Fund and another £300m for research in Universities through the regional funding councils. The Wellcome Trust is contributing £300m to the Infrastructure Fund, and a further £100m towards the construction costs of a new third generation synchrotron X-ray facility to be used mainly for bio-medical research. The question is whether physical scientists, who do three-quarters of the work on the SRS will be forced off the new machine to make way for biologists (see pages 3, 5 of 'Physics World' August 1998).
A decision on where the new synchrotron is to be built has not yet been made.
You can read the Press Release on the
Wellcome Web site
Two atoms are walking down the street. One turns to the other & says " Oh no! I think I'm an ion". The other responds "Are you sure? ". "Yes, I'm positive" is the reply.
If this sort of thing appeals to you, surf to the Science Jokes page, described in the New Scientist for 11 July 98 p 194. It can be found at:
http://www.princeton.edu/~pemayer/ScienceJokes.html
Page last updated 26 Mar 1999
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