Science

"The New York Times Magazine" called Galdikas the "third angel" of Louis Leakey, who also taught Jane Goodall and DIan Fossey. Galdikas has been studying orangutans in Indonesia since 1971, when virtually nothing was known about the animals in the wild. Since then, there have been articles about her, and her research in "National Geographic" and other magazines. She has just written a new book about her work, "Reflections of Eden: My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo."

Dr. Robert Sheets is the director of the National Hurricane Center near Miami, Florida. The Center keeps a constant watch on tropical disturbances which may turn into hurricanes. He'll talk today about what causes hurricanes, and how people who live in regions with many hurricanes can prepare for the storm season.

James Reston, Jr. has written a biography of Galileo, called "Galileo: A Life." In it, he explores how Galileo was publicly humiliated for supporting the theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. Reston recently wrote a cover story for "Time Magazine," on the comet crash into Jupiter, before the crash became national news.

Anthony Aveni is one of the pioneers in the field of archaeoastronomy, which traces how different cultures throughout the ages have interpreted the skies and planets. He has just written a book, "Conversing with the Planets." In it, he weaves together cosmology, mythology, and anthropology, to look at the significance of stars and how they have been perceived in various cultures. Aveni is a professor of Physics and Astronomy, as well as Sociology and Anthropology, at Colgate University.

David Levy is an amateur astronomer. He's discovered 21 comets, both as an amateur and as part of a professional team. He recently discovered the comet that will crash into Jupiter on July 16th, and the comet is named after him. In a Smithsonian magazine article, he called this comet "the most cataclysmic event observed in our solar system since the dawn of civilization." Levy is a contributor to many astronomical magazines, and is the author of numerous books on astronomy.

Retired Astronaut and former test pilot Alan Shepard. He was America's first man in space in 1961; the voyage covered 302 miles and lasted 15 minutes. Ten years later with Apollo 14, he made it to the moon, playing golf on the moon's surface. (In 1969, the Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon). Early in his space career, Shepard was diagnosed with an inner ear syndrome which could have ended his career. Shepard grounded himself in 1963 and became Chief of the Astronaut Office.

Neurophysiologist William Calvin. He assisted in neurosurgery on a patient named Neil. Neil was to have a portion of his temporal lobe removed to cure his severe epilepsy. But the neurosurgeon, George Ojemann, had to know where to cut. A mistake could cost Neil part of his normal brain function. So, while Neil was awake on the operating table, Dr. Ojemann, probed and stimulated Neil's exposed brain, the whole time carrying on a conversation with the patient. The purpose was to create a detailed roadmap of Neil's brain functioning.

Today it was announced that scientists had unearthed in Ethiopia the first nearly complete skull of the earliest recognized human ancestors. It's that of a male who lived three million years ago, giving a face to the species first identified in 1974 with the discovery of the skeleton named "Lucy." Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered Lucy and was part of the team to make this new discovery. The discovery could settle the debate of whether various fossils from this time period were from a single species, Australopithecus afarensis, or from different species.

Physicist James Trefil. His new book, "A Scientist in the City," (Doubleday) is a exploration of how the laws of nature and technology came together to make our cities. Trefil starts by looking at cities as natural ecosystems, and then looks at the key scientific discoveries that made cities possible. Trefil has written more than ten books on science, including, "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Science." Trefil is also a regular commentator for NPR, and he teaches at George Mason University.

Astrophysicist George Smoot. Since 1974 he's worked on NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, leading the instrument team that detected cosmic "seeds." In 1992 he announced that he and a team of researchers had detected the biggest, oldest objects ever observed in the universe, the "cosmic seeds" that were the origin of galaxies and clusters of galaxies.