Scientific Swimsuit Sweeties
AIR’s editors constantly roam the globe in search of nature’s beauties. Here’s what they sent back this year.text by Deb Kreuze and Lelivoldt Bruno
Slick, sleek, de-Speedoed. "Onward" is the motto
of modest Al Teich, Director of Science and Policy Programs at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. Active Al is forever slipping
into and out of his favorite bikini drawers. When he emerges from the pool,
Al dives headlong into his job—overseeing the Asso-cia-tion’s activities in
science and technology policy. With a Ph.D. from MIT, and a year-round tan,
Al still finds time to edit books (most recently Technology and the Future,
seventh edition, St. Martin’s Press, September 1996), and wax various regions
of his body. Photo: the Al Teich Fan Club.
Tall, dark, dirty. A good roll in the mud is nothing new
for Paul Berghoff. Here, pretty Paul fetchingly boogies and bellies at Ein
Gedi on the banks of the Dead Sea. After getting gooey, he loves to shower
with hot sulfur water, then explore teaching alternatives with friends. It’s
all good, clean fun to The University of North Carolina at Pembroke’s favorite
full Professor of Education. Away from the beach, Paul loves to play with
pencil and paper. The South is still abuzz at his latest potboiler, "Case
Study Response to ‘The First Amendment’" (The National Teaching &
Learning FORUM, vol. 5, no. 5, 1996, pp. 5-6). Paul is also a licensed
practicing psychologist. His dream is to bake cakes for Madonna. Photo: The
National Breakfast Council.
Wind-blown, winsome, iguana-ed. Vivacious Vickie Roberts
not only studies life, she lives it. Her immune system radiates light and
lotion as she vamps at the beach in Mexico with her trusty iguanas Euler,
Ehrlich, and Erdös (and Alvin). A popular lead author (her latest is "Tolerance
to Single, but Not Multiple, Amino Acid Replacements in Antibody VH CDR2:
A Means of Minimizing B Cell Wastage from Somatic Hypermutation?" M.
Brown, M.B. Rittenberg, C. Chen, and V.A. Roberts, Journal of Immunology,
vol. 156, 1996, pp. 3285-91), Vickie also knows how to cut loose. Her admirers
at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla are wowed when they learn she’s
a connoisseur of cockroach immune systems. Away from the beach, Vickie mentally
suns herself on the rock of her Ph.D. in organic chemistry. Photo: Michael
E. Pique.
Copyright © 1997 The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). All rights reserved.