The author considers the role of narratives, specifically end-of-life narratives, in medical education. After addressing the role of indexing and other neurological explanations for the validity of narratives in the classroom, she focuses on one recent memoir that explores the medical experience of an ALS patient. The advantages of using narratives, including the understanding of the patients’ perspective and the development of empathy, are two important reasons to adopt this approach.

A passive interplanetary dust collection experiment, currently in orbit aboard LDEF (Long Duration Exposure Facility), is described. The collectors, germanium target plates covered by metallized Mylar foils, are designed for secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) measurements of the elemental and isotopic compositions of residues resulting from micrometeoroid (> 10−10 grams) impacts. Impact simulation experiments have demonstrated the validity of the collection concept. Quantitative elemental analyses are complicated by the non-uniform distribution of projectile-derived elements.

The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF-I), which contains a number of cosmic dust experiments, is due to be launched in the spring of 1984 and recovered about a year later. Current plans call for re-fitting the LDEF spacecraft with a large area of plastic nuclear track detectors and relaunching (LDEF-II) for a flight that will last about 2 years. The main purpose of the mission is to extend primary cosmic ray abundance measurements to the actinide region. A meeting was held at Washington University in December 1983 to discuss the problems and prospects for cosmic dust experiments on LDEF-II. Most participants were drawn from the LDEF-I community of investigators. The meeting resulted in a report which treated the scientific rationale for LDEF-II dust experiments, discussed various implementation options, and concluded with a set of summary recommendations. We discussed this report and summarized the status of LDEF-II as of this meeting. It is important to note that the report serves equally well as a basis for discussion of dust experiments on future space stations.

Complementary analysis techniques including electron microscopy (SEM/EDX and TEM), molecular spectroscopy (FTIR and Raman), and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), are used to study individual dust particles collected in the stratosphere. Large deuterium enrichments and solar flare tracks show that most particles in the “chondritic” class are interplanetary dust particles (IDPs). Infrared transmission spectra of most IDPs fall into three major classes (layer-lattice silicates, pyroxenes and olivines). TEM and Raman measurements confirm this classification. The IR spectra show certain similarities to spectra observed in comets and protostars. In particular the 6.8 μm features observed in protostars and IDPs may have a common origin. Large D excesses are observed in IDPs of the first two IR classes. The correlation of D/H ratios with the C concentration indicates a carbonaceous carrier of the excess D. The D enrichments and IR spectra provide links to interstellar molecular cloud material.

Three problems will be discussed: A) The relationship between mlcro-meteoroids and solar flare particles averaged over the recent geologic past (~1 my); B) the past record of this relationship as measured in lunar soils and lunar and meteoritic breccias; C) the determination of the time at which different extraterrestrial samples were exposed to free space. Data bearing on these points obtained from studies of special lunar rocks and from measurements on individual crystals removed from lunar cores will be presented. Progress in using ion-probe mass spectrometry to link measurements of micro-impact craters with the past properties of the solar wind will also be discussed. Comparing microcraters and solar flare tracks in individual crystals from lunar cores, we find no evidence of any extraordinary variations for a time span covering an interval of ~109 yrs. Crystals 100µ to 400µ in size in mature lunar soil samples appear to have been exposed 3 to free space at the top of the lunar regolith for times from 103 to 104 yrs.

Crater size frequency distributions vary to a degree which probably cannot be explained by variations in lunar surface orientation of the crater detectors or changes in micrometeoroid flux. Questions of sample representativity suggest that high ratios of small to large craters of micrometeoroids (e.g., a million 1.0 micron craters for each 500 micron crater) should be the most reliable. We obtain a flux for particles producing 0.1 micron diameter craters of approximately 300 per cm2 per steradian per year. We observe no anisotropy in the submicron particle flux between the plane of the ecliptic and the normal in the direction of lunar north. No change in flux over a 106 year period is indicated by our data.

Foreign policy, the very existence of which Soviet leaders admitted only hesitatingly during the green years of the Revolution—although they availed themselves of it as an indispensable tool from the moment they gained power—has become a primary weapon in safeguarding the interests of the “Socialist Fatherland” and propagating the struggle against “world capitalism.”

In February 1948 few people in Czechoslovakia could size up the full implications of the Communist coup. The bulk of non-Communist public opinion was, to say the least, bewildered by the rapidity of events and confused about the real issues involved. Its attitude reflected this state of mind. The political parties to which it traditionally owed allegiance collapsed overnight. Their duly elected leaders were immediately muzzled. President Benes, on whom in the final analysis the total burden of stopping the Communist onslaught rested, and from whom the nation would normally expect its cue, gave none, unless his passive acceptance of the fait accompli with which he was presented were to be construed as a sign for the people to do likewise.