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The lecture will be a memorial to honor Mr. Field for his work in education. He was appointed to the initial Monmouth Regional High School Board of Education in 1957 and then served as an elected member until his death in 1991. He was a staff physicist at the Fort Monmouth Army base and a lecturer in physics at Monmouth College.

The lecture has been established by the Friends of the Monmouth County Library Association and the Rutgers University chapter of Sigma Xi.

Dr. Krauss is the author of popular as well as academic writings on physics and astronomy including "The Fifth Essence: The Search for Dark Matter in the Universe" published in 1989 by Basic Books. He has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and the Museum of Natural History.

The lecture will be given at 2 P.M. in the library, 125 Symmes Drive. Admission is free.

Information: (908) 308-3761.

The 2 p.m. lecture will be free and open to the public. Krauss is a renowned particle physicist and author of more than 90 papers as well as numerous popular articles on physics and astronomy.

Krauss is the author of "The Fifth Essence: The Search for Dark Matter in the Universe" and is writing a second book to be titled "Fear of Physics." He has received numerous awards and has lectured extensively at museums throughout the country.

The lecture, which is expected to be an annual event, has been established in memory of Norman Field, who was a member of the Monmouth Regional High School Board of Education. Field died last year.

The event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Monmouth County Library Association and by the Rutgers University Chapter of the Sigma Xi, and international scientific research society. It is intended that the lecture will serve both to educate and stimulate discussion on a particular scientific topic of interest to the general public.

As a staff physicist at Ft. Monmouth and a lecturer in physics at Monmouth College, Field maintained a life-long interest in scientific issues, according to his son, Ken Field.

"My husband once organized a symposium for the Friends. It featured guest speakers on topics including life on other planets and the sea," Mrs. Field said. "He wanted others to share his love of science and it was important that it be presented in an interesting way for everyone to enjoy."

It is hoped that the lecture series will serve to promote similar interest in science and science education among both younger and older members of the communities served by the library, organizers said.

The lecture, titled "unraveling the Code of Life: The Genetic Revolution of the 90s," will be given by Dr. Margretta Reed Seashore of Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Seashore, a native of Red Bank, is a professor of genetics and pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine. She has lectured extensively on genetics and the Human Genome Project, a 20-year collaborative effort to decipher the entire human genetic code.

Her lecture will explain the project, recently brought to the media attention by the blockbuster film Jurassic Park. In addition, she will address some of the new possibilities and dilemmas posed by recent advances in genetics.

The lecture series was established in 1991 in memory of Field, past president of the Friends of the Monmouth County Library Association and a supporter of the library for many years.

It is co-sponsored by the Friends and the Rutgers University Chapter of Sigma Xi, an international scientific research society.

Widely recognized for his contributions in the area of public education, having served from 1957-1991 on local, county and state school board organizations, Field maintained a lifelong personal and professional interest in scientific issues. He worked as a staff physicist at Fort Monmouth and as a lecturer in physics at Monmouth College, West Long Branch.

"It is hoped that this lecture series will serve to promote similar interest in science and science education among both younger and older members of the community served by the library," said Ken Field, son of the late educator and coordinator of the series.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information, call the library at 842-5995.

Dr. Margretta Reed Seashore, a professor of genetics and pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine will speak on "Unraveling the Code of Life: The Genetic Revolution of the 90's."

She has lectured extensively on genetics and on the Human Genome Project, a 20-year effort to decipher the entire human genetic code. In addition to explaining the project, she will address some of the new possibilities and dilemmas posed by recent advances in genetics.

Dr. Seashore was born and raised in Red Bank. She is the daughter of Robert and Lillie Reed of Tinton Falls.

This will be the second annual Norman J Field Lecture in Science. Admission is free for the lectures, established in memory of Dr. Field, who was a leader in public education, a staff physicist at Fort Monmouth and a lecturer in physics at Monmouth College.

Information: (908) 842-5995.

It's our genes that "make each individual unique," yet there is only "a 1 percent difference in the genome between one person and another," Dr. Margretta Reed Seashore, professor of genetics and pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine told more than 100 people attending the second annual Norman J Field Lecture in Science at the Monmouth County Library's Eastern Branch, here.

"We are on the brink of an entirely new area of knowledge," Seashore said as she explained the Human Genome Project, the 20-year effort funded by government agencies to decipher the entire human genetic code, and brought to popular attention by the film, "Jurassic Park."

"We hope to have a map with at least landmarks by 1995," she said. The project is scheduled for completion in 2005.

In recent advances, geneticists have identified the genes for a rare, inherited form of breast cancer, for muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, and emphysema, "so we can identify those at risk," she said. "It would be nice if we could use that information to intervene and fix some of these genes gone wrong."

This is "an exciting time for scientists and those who will be able to reap the benefits of this new knowledge," but there are dangers as well in the human genetic engineering we soon will be able to do, she warned.

"The ability we will have to manipulate the human genome in the next two decades... must be used for the public good." Seashore said. "How will it interact with the environment, how will it influence human development, aging and behavior?"

She said that one part of the Human Genome Project is a study of its ethical, legal and societal implications. Non-scientists also must understand those implications and become involved in deciding who controls the information and how it will be used, she emphasized.

"If I am at risk for cancer, who should be allowed to have that information besides me?" she asked rhetorically. "My children? My employer, who might use it to say, 'You're at risk of a serious disease and I don't want to get involved with that.'? My health insurance company which might use it to deny me health insurance? Should it be on a data base so any computer hack can get it?"

Advances in our understanding of genetics "will force us to change our ideas of how things work" and the reaction will be troublesome, Seashore predicted.

"People didn't like it when they learned the earth goes around the sun, or that the earth isn't flat," she said.

In response to questions, she said that while the number of studies is small there is accumulating evidence of biological factors in homosexuality "and some of them may be genes."

She said that no link has been established between genes and intelligence, adding "it would surprise me a lot" if there weren't one.

"But if the human brain were so simple we could understand it, we'd be so simple we couldn't," she said.

The lecture series honors the late Norman J Field, a physicist who was president of the Monmouth County Library and for many years served on local, county and state boards of education.

Seashore is a Red Bank native whose parents, Robert and Lillie Reed, now live in Tinton Falls.

Peter Dodson, a professor of anatomy and geology at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak on "Dinosaurs: New Thoughts on Old Bones" at the Monmouth County Library, 125 Symmes Drive. Whether dinosaurs were smart or dumb will be among the questions explored in the lecture.

Dr. Dodson, the vice president of the Dinosaur Society, is co-editor of a technical monograph, "The Dinosauria," published in 1990 by the University of California Press. He is working on a book about his favorites, the horned dinosaurs.

The presentation is the annual Norman J Field Lecture in Science, in memory of a prominent Monmouth County educator. Admission is free.

Information: (908)308-3761.

MONMOUTH COUNTY LIBRARY
125 Symmes Drive,
Manalapan. Saturday at 2
P.M. Free. (908) 431-7220.

Find out "How Insects Changed the World" by attending the 1995 Norman J Field Lecture in Science, Saturday, 2 p.m., at the Monmouth County Library headquarters, 125 Symmes Drive, Manalapan. The talk will be given by Dr. Douglas Whitman, associate professor of biology, Illinois State University. It is sponsored by the Friends of the Monmouth County Library Association and the Rutgers University Chapter of Sigma Xi.

Douglas Whitman, an entomologist who has eaten wasp larvae during research expeditions should know. The Illinois State University biology professor will speak Saturday about the unique features of insects that have paved the way for their evolutionary success.

Whitman's talk, entitled "How Insects Conquered the World," will be held at the Monmouth County Library on Symmes Drive in Manalapan at 2 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

The event is part of an annual lecture series established in 1991 in memory of Norman Field, a long-time educational activist who served from 1957-91 on local, county and state school board organizations.

Field worked as a staff physicist at Ft. Monmouth and as a lecturer in physics at Monmouth College.

Whitman's research has taken him to Australia, Tahiti, and Papua New Guinea, where he investigated, among other things, the use of insects as human food. He is also an accomplished nature photographer.

Saturday
Studying insects

The 7:30 p.m. lecture series is part of the Norman J Field Lecture series and will be held at the Young Auditorium, Bey Hall, Cedar and Norwood avenues.

Cholesterol, a hot topic among nutritionists, is also Vinson's research interest. He has lectured throughout the county on cholesterol and artherosclerosis, and conducted studies on animal and human cholesterol and the effects of vitamins and natural antioxidants on heart disease.

During his lecture, Vinson will be discussing how diet, exercise and drugs can help lower cholesterol. For information, call (732) 571-7520.

As life moves forward, the vows born of grief erode. The funds for scholarship evaporate, foundations are disbanded due to lack of interest and events of greater immediacy take precedence over golf tournaments that pay homage to someone long dead and buried.

Norman J Field's legacy was sworn to him six years ago after a heart attack felled the physicist and educator at the age of 68. Death had come, fittingly it seemed, as Field and his wife attended a convention for school board members and administrators in Atlantic City.

"Next to his wife and kids, school was his first love," longtime friend Martin Barger said in Field's obituary. A charter member when the Monmouth Regional High School Board of Education was formed in 1957, Field also served in various capacities on school boards on state and national levels.

Given his lifelong devotion to both education and science - the staff physicist at Fort Monmouth, he also taught the subject at Monmouth College - a scholarship in his name would have been the obvious way to honor Norman Field. For Field's family, the obvious wasn't enough.

Field's son, Kenneth, initially considered staging an annual concert in his father's memory. "I wanted to do something. But I quickly realized (a musical concert) would be for me and not so much for him," said Field, a professional saxophonist living in Cambridge, Mass.

Raised in a family enhanced intellectually by constant debate, good-natured and otherwise, Kenneth Field knew the most appropriate way to honor his father would be to enrich the public as Field, his brother and two sisters had been enriched at home.

Thus, the Norman J Field Lecture in Science.

At 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in Bey Hall at Monmouth University, the legacy continues when Joe A. Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University if Scranton, steps behind the lectern to answer the question: "Cholesterol - Good Guy or Bad Guy?" in the sixth annual Norman J Field lecture.

In a society that prefers edification in sound bites of 90 seconds or less, how has a lecture series, in science, no less, managed to survive for six years?

"The library (until this year the lecture was held at the Monmouth County Library) has lectures on history and they have lectures on music. But, with Bell Labs and Monmouth University, I think this is a topic of interest," said Norman Field's widow, Gladys.

Kenneth Field, for one, doesn't pretend to know the answer. "The general public, including me, doesn't have enough exposure to science. It's not something people spend a lot of time learning about," said Field.

Which, to Norman Field's son, makes it all the more astonishing that as many as 250 and as few as 75 people have turned up over the years to listen to topics ranging from dinosaurs to "The Beginning and End of the Universe" to "How Insects Will Conquer the World" to the "Human Gene Project."

The lecture has become such a fixture, that Kenneth Field is hoping to establish a foundation so that its co-sponsors (including the Monmouth County Chapter of the American Chemical Society, the Friends of the Monmouth County Library and the Monmouth Junior Science Symposium) can ensure that the lectures extend into the next century.

To Gladys Field, gratification comes from knowing her husband will - in a way - continue to teach and educate. For Norman Field's son, the legacy is nothing short of sweet music.

Steve Giegerich, who can be reached at steveg@injersey.com, is an Asbury Park Press staff writer. His column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.

The Norman J Field Lectures in Science will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Young Auditorium in Bey Hall. The lectures will focus on explaining the basic science of human- caused climate warming and the expected climate changes during the next centuries.

The featured speaker, Jerry Mahlman, is a professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Princeton University.

Anyone interested in attending should call the Monmouth University's Junior Science Symposium at (732) 571-7520.

Mahlman is a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Princeton University and director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, within the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Topics to be covered include the science of "greenhouse" warming, the role of mathematical models of climate, the lessons contained in observations of climate change over the past century, the expected climate change over the next several centuries, likely impacts of climate change on life systems, and the role of societal choice in dealing with the problem.

Ample time will be made available for questions.

Refreshments and informal discussion will follow the lecture, which is free and open to the public.

"We have implicitly set up a situation where we do not know how to keep the carbon dioxide from doubling in the next century," Dr. Jerry D. Mahlman, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Princeton University, said Thursday night. "We have potentially the defining problem of the 21st century."

And, he warned, "We are on a social path, population path and energy consumption path to quadrupling the amount of carbon dioxide."

Outlining the consequences of global warming, Mahlman was the guest speaker at Monmouth University's annual Norman J Field Lecture in Science.

Global warming, or the greenhouse effect, occurs because carbon dioxide and other gases emitted from burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal, car emissions, or the use of aerosols and other similar products are trapped in the atmosphere, causing the planet to retain heat.

The most spectacular example is carbon dioxide and "we know it (global warming) is essentially completely due to human nature," said Mahlman, who for the past 15 years has also served as director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at the federal National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

"Doubling carbon dioxide is what we've already set ourselves up for" despite warnings by scientists for years and two global conferences within the past 10 years, Mahlman said. "Lifestyle choices on the local, national and international level are what's led us to this problem."

Alternative energy sources such as wind or solar power are insufficient, Mahlman said. Instead of seeking ways to fight global warming, which often pits developing nations against developed nations, the mood now seems to be one of coping and adaptation, Mahlman argued.

Earth's temperature has already increased 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit during the past century, he noted. Doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could lead to temperature increases of between 2.7 degrees and 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Quadrupling the carbon dioxide levels could lead to increases of between 13 and 17 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the southeastern United States subjected to heat waves this past summer, the rise in temperature could mean an average 24-hour July temperature of 88 degrees Fahrenheit (96 degrees with the heat index) if carbon dioxide levels are doubled.

Sea levels will also rise, three feet in the next 500 years, if carbon dioxide levels are doubled, and six feet if the levels are quadrupled, said Mahlman, who based his projections on mathematical models developed by scientists assessing previous temperatures and making calculations based on likely ocean and temperature conditions. Temperatures and rises in sea level have been consistent with the models, he said.

"If we park every car in the U.S. permanently there will only be a 5 to 6 percent decrease in emissions. It is not just about the United States," Mahlman said. "The more people understand the problem, the more we can begin the dialogue of what are the options."

The annual lecture series began in 1991 to commemorate the memory of Norman J Field, a former physicist and educator at the university.

Lutz is working on a film about ecosystems called deep-sea hydrothermal vents, a topic on which he is considered a leading authority.

Among his discussion topics will be the restoration of a vent following an underwater volcanic eruption in 1991.

The lecture is free and open to the public.