Senate votes down treaty I
TREATY from page 1
claiming polls show most Americans
favor such a ban - first proposed by
President Dwight Eisenhower in
1958.
The treaty has been signed by 154
nations but must be ratified by all 44
of the world’s nuclear-capable coun
tries to take effect.
Thus, the Senate vote was an enor
mous blow.
Graham Johnson, director of the
University of Nebraska
Environmental Resource Center, said
the rejection of the treaty would be
harmful to U.S. international relations.
“Of course they’ll have to keep
talking about (the treaty),” he said.
“There will be all kinds of internation
al pressure put on us.”
Navy ROTC member Ryan
Aleson, a senior mechanical engineer
ing major, said he agreed with the
decision to reject the treaty.
“By not having (the treaty), we
maintain our sovereignty and the
option to test (weapons),” he said. “We
have shown we are responsible by not
testing, but we need to maintain the
option.”
The United States has not tested a
nuclear weapon for the past seven
years.
Andrew Faltin, a senior philoso
phy major, said he supported the
Senate’s action.
“It’s fine,” he said. “(The treaty)
will resurface when we have the tech
nology to enforce it.
“Passing the treaty now would be
like passing a law saying we’ll give
food to the poor when we have some
food.”
Supporters warned the price of
outright rejection would certainly be
international condemnation - and
could even increase pressure on
emerging nuclear powers like Pakistan
and India to conduct more tests.
America’s top European allies -
Britain, France and Germany - had
called on the Senate late last week not
to reject the pact. China earlier this
week said U.S. ratification would lead
other countries to follow suit.
But opponents claimed the com
pliance with the treaty could not be
verified and argued that it would do
little to stop terrorist oiganizations or
dictators from developing nuclear
weapons.
President Clinton had made ratifi
cation a top second-term priority and
was the first world leader to sign the
pact in September 1996.
In a last-ditch effort to delay
action, Democrats tried to block a
move toward a final vote. They lost on
a straight 55-45 party-line vote.
The vote would have denied the
traditional right of the Senate majority
leader to set the agenda for voting.
The treaty was the first on arms
control ever rejected by the Senate and
only the sixth time this century the
Senate has rejected any treaty.
Meanwhile, in a speech at the
University of Maine, Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright said the
United States has no plan to conduct
nuclear weapons tests, whatever the
outcome of the Senate debate, and
would discourage other nations from
testing.
The Associated Press con
tributed to this report
State area codes may see changes
CODE from page 1
Hand said there are about 750 pre
fixes available per area code.
As of September, there were 120
prefixes left under the 402 area code,
and some companies give out up to 38
new prefixes a month.
“(We need to) slow down the
demand for new (prefixes) and more
efficiently use the ones we have,” he
said.
According to www.uswest.com,
new area codes are being given out
across the country, not just in Nebraska.
The many choices in service
providers ami an increase in technolo
gy, such as fax machines and cellular
phones, are causing die decrease in pre
fixes, the Web site said.
Hand agreed Those services use up
prefixes because they use so many
phone numbers, he said
The Public Service Commission is
looking for a solution that will be the
easiest to implement and will have the
least impact on communities.
“It’s a lot of hassle for people in
Nebraska,” Hand said
According to the U.S. West Web
site, an organization called the
Numbering Plan Administrators for die
United States keeps track of available
prefixes in each area for the telecom
munications industry.
The administrators assign new area
codes before existing ones run out.
The decision on what plan to imple
ment is up to the Federal
Communications Commission, but
Hand said the Public Service
Commission has petitioned the FCC
for more jurisdiction.
Hand said the FCC has allowed
other states to decide what’s best, and
he hopes it will do the same for
Nebraska.
“The demand for telephone num
bers has changed,” Hand said. “It’s a lit
tle unpredictable what’s going on right
now.”
Have you spent more time
planning your vacation
than your Retirement?
~Peter Lynch
Do you know if your retirement plan is on track?
Your Fidelity Investments® representative will be available by
appointment to discuss any questions you may have related to your
University of Nebraska Retirement Plan.
1 r -
• ^ _ . - . . .... . . . __
Tuesday and Wednesday,
October 19 & 20,1999
Can Today: 1-800-642-7131
to schedule your one-on-one consultation
Fidelity* is committed to helping you achieve your a**^
retirement goals. We look forward to meeting with you.
Fidelity investmentm
Fidelity Investments Tax-Exempt Services Company
A division of Fidelity Investments institutional Services Company, Inc.
5i 87657 82 Devonshire Street, Boston, MA 02109
Jupiter’s moon
may support life
PADUA, Italy (AP) - Hundreds of
cosmic scientists gathered in
Galileo’s homeland Wednesday, hop
ing to learn from a spacecraft named
Galileo whether a heavenly body the
Renaissance astronomer discovered
four centuries ago might support life.
The NASA spacecraft Galileo,
winding down a two-year, $30 mil
lion probe of Jupiter, made its clos
est-ever flyby of the planet’s moons
earlier this week, passing within 380
miles of Io, Jupiter’s innermost large
moon.
But many of the scientists here are
more interested in Jupiter’s fourth
largest moon, Europa, spotted by
Galileo in 1610. Much of the NASA
probe’s data on Europa is still being
analyzed.
“There should be dozens of high
resolution images, close-ups hun
dreds of times better than anything
we’ve seen before,” said Torrance
Johnson, the Galileo project scientist.
In the world of planetary science,
Europa is very hot these days. Not in
terms of temperature - the surface is
blindingly bright ice and the ther
mometer hovers around minus 260
degrees - but in terms of the search
for life beyond Earth.
Some scientists here believe that
Europa, the brightest object in our
solar system other than the Sun, may
have the elements needed for life:
water, a heat source deep in the core
and organic molecules.
They acknowledge that condi
tions are extreme, but say they are
finding evidence that microbes can
exist under the harshest conditions
deep inside our own planet, in rocks
from the bottom of the oceans.
Other researchers reported in a
recent issue of the journal Science
that Europa probably could not sup
port life because any oceans beneath
the frozen surface could barely sup
port single-cell organisms let alone
complex species. They said a layer of
ice at least 6 miles deep blocks the
sun’s life-sustaining energy from the
water.
Scientists have also reported find
ing evidence of frozen sulfuric acid
on Europa’s surface.
Sulfiiric acid is an extremely cor
rosive substance found in battery acid
on Earth, as well as in the dreaded
acid rain, and the discovery gave
them pause at first, one of the Galileo
scientists, Robert Carlson, admitted.
Then he talked things over with astro
biologists,who said sulfur can be a
source ot rood tor microbes.
“It’s not as bad as I thought. In
fact, it might be good,” Carlson said
as he discussed his findings
Wednesday, midway through the
annual convention of the American
Astronomical Society’s Division of
Planetary Sciences.
A group of scientists from the
University of Arizona presented an
analysis of Europa’s geology that sug
gests conditions m the moon’s watery
crust change slowly enough for some
forms of life to adapt and evolve.
With so much tantalizing evi
dence pointing to the conditions for
life on Europa, scientists are eager to
learn more. The Galileo spacecraft
will make several more passes by
Europa before funding runs out next
year.
Genetic engineering
tool could aid plants
PLANT from page 1
physiological responses - at a molec
ular and cellular level- to the amount
of light it detects.
Because of these findings,
researchers say plants may be able to
use and process light better, which
makes the plant stronger. Also
researchers might be able to counter
act a plant’s evolutionary trait of
shade avoidance.
Shade avoidance refers to a
plant’s fight to see the sun. By coun
teracting shade avoidance, plants will
use more of their energy to produce
seeds and extend their roots than to
compete with other plants for light,
Kwon said.
For two years, Song and Yong
Kook Kwan, who now works in
Kwangja, Korea, focused on the
chemistry aspect of research, while
Gitsu Choi, of the Kumbho Life
Science Laboratory in Korea, worked
on the genetics aspect.
After Kwan’s doctorate work in
Nebraska, he returned to Korea, I
where he is currently doing research.
The three men found a protein
called nucleoside diphosphate kinase,
or NDPK, which recognizes a specif
ic quality of light and triggers a final
response through light detection.
Song, who has been working on
plants’ responses to light since 1970,
started this research by inspecting
how plants respond to light waves.
Plants have small quantities of a
pigment protein called phytochrome,
or Pr, which detects light in red wave
lengths, Song said. The combination
of phytochrome far-red absorbing, or
Pff, and Pr produces a photosynthetic
light for plants, Song said.
This quality of light is recognized
by NDPK. Plants need red light to
change phytochrome from Pr to Pff,
Song said.
One contributing factor to weak
plants, especially those in shade, is
that plants have a small window of
time, between about 9 or 10 a.m. and
dusk, when both Pr and Pff are pre
sent in the light.
Kwan said a similar research has
been used on animal cells to help pro
duce the drug Viagra.
Song, Choi and Kwan’s findings
were published in the Oct. 7 edition of
Nature, an international weekly jour
nal of science.
Under t^Green Mill SptCIfcl Milks
Open Wed-Sat
7:30 PM - 1 AM — * -
FUN! 475-4844 Gefr Crazy a+
ci ini tfncoto’s WoHert
FUN! ^achCl^i
