EMOTIONS AND KIDS: Psychology Prof. John Gottman's work on coaching kids about handling emotions was featured in a Hartford Courant article. When he perused a catalog of self-help books and videos, Gottman told the paper, "What they mostly say is 'Be powerful. Force yourself on people. Forget about your feelings, think positively.' They think that if your emotions are missing, it's empowering. And if you focus on your emotions, it's really debilitating. In emotion coaching, we're saying that meaning comes out of these very special moments with your kids. You're close to your kid when your kid is sad, and you're sad with your child. And you're not impatient with it. You're not saying 'That's enough of that; let's go on.' You communicate such a powerful link to your child if you're sad together."

CLEANING UP: Officials are fighting, not over whether to clean up Tatoosh Island after an oil spill, but how to clean it up. One group wants to move quickly to save birds on the island; another wants to study methods first, and a third wants to buy a stretch of coastal forest or part of a river drainage for protection. Asked to comment, Zoology Prof. Julia Parrish told AP in a widely circulated story: "It's tremendously controversial because a lot of money is at stake. It's sort of like a bunch of 12-year-olds on the playground scuffling with each other. In my opinion, people need to stop thinking like lawyers and start thinking like natural historians."

GENES AND CRIME: When Molecular Biotechnology Prof. Leroy Hood spoke at a conference on genetics, the San Francisco Chronicle was listening. Because genes are more and more being recognized as affecting behavior, Hood said, future criminals may blame it on their genes. "Since our system of law is based on free will and individual responsibility, could a future criminal argue extenuating circumstances because his genes made him commit the criminal act?" Hood asked. "It will take will, resourcefulness and soul-searching on the part of society's policy makers to find an ethical path through the thorny issues created by the notion that there might be identifiable genetic pre-dispositions to certain behaviors."

SOUND COMMUNICATION: In the ocean, the best way to "see" is to use sound waves, and some scientists are trying to build a kind of mirror that reflects sound as if it were traveling back in time. The instrument would cause the sound to arrive at the point where it started as a focused beam of energy, instead of scattering around into many confusing echoes, enabling, among other things, the Navy to detect hidden submarines or mines more effectively. In describing the phenomenon to the Dallas Morning News, Applied Physics Lab Principal Engineer Darrell Jackson likened it to a rack of billiard balls that's been broken, then showing the balls moving back in and rearranging themselves into a perfect triangle. "In time reversal you really are trying to make the billiard balls reassemble. You're trying to do it right there and then," Jackson said. "That can be challenging, but in the ocean, sound is it. Animals (that use sonar) taught us that. We're stuck with sound, and we have to figure out ways to make it work better." ¶