- 2 - 
PETARD HOISTING, No. I 
The following excerpt from a letter to a colleague here at 
the Smithsonian is self-explanatory: 
"Enclosed is a copy of MUDPIE no. 15, which describes Dr. Wilsons 
Monograph on the use of GIPSY in Palynology. If you read the last 
paragraph, you will note that the author of the newsletter happily 
pointed out the misspelling of Permian in the Monograph. I think 
it somewhat ironic (perhaps a touch of poetic justice) that, ex¬ 
cept where quoted from the Monograph, the word GIPSY is spelled 
incorrectly. The spelling chosen in the newsletter may be indic¬ 
ative of how the system is used in some cases, however, with all 
respect to Dr. Wilson, I believe the 'I' spelling would be more 
closely associated with his use of the system." /s./ Robert W. 
Shields (U. Okla. Med. Comp. Center). 
My old boss, Norman Hartweg, used to say that if you do 
everything right all the time no one will ever notice, but do 
something stupid, and it will immediately be brought to your 
attention. At leas t I now know that some one out there is 
reading this stuff!—JAP. 
COMMITTEE ON DATA FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
This committee is a subordinate arm of the International 
Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), and is called CODATA for 
short. It is primarily concerned with the compilation of criti¬ 
cally selected numerical and other quantitative scientific data, 
as, for example, "standard heats of formation of water and 
carbon dioxide, (or) standard entropies at 25 degrees C of 
selected elements," (from Newsletter no. 1). The feeling of the 
committee that there was not much data like this in biology is 
reflected in their first bulletin, which documents "Automated 
Information Handling in Data Centers," and has no biological 
centers listed at all. In Newsletter no. 5, however, a paper 
is included entitled "Critically evaluated data in the biolog¬ 
ical sciences," by R. L. Zwemer and P. L. Altman, who have 
worked with the Biological Handbooks Series. This apparently 
reminded the committee that they had sort of forgotten about 
biology, and at their meeting in Naples in November, 1970, 
P. Altman was appointed the representative of the International 
Union of Biological Sciences on CODATA. 
The committee publishes both a newsletter and irregularly 
issued bulletins. The former deals with miscellaneous infor¬ 
mation ; the latter is usually a vehicle for a single subject, 
often a report of a "task group" of the committee. CODATA has 
also published the "International Compendium of Numerical Data 
Projects," 1969, xxiii + 295 pp., which sells for $13.20. I 
have not seen this volume, and cannot comment on it. 
The newsletter is available on request and free of charge 
from: CODATA Central Office, Westendstrasse 19, 6 Frankfurt/Main, 
Federal Republic of Germany.—JAP. 
