Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 12, 1995                   TAG: 9510120062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

SCIENTISTS WHO STUDIED OZONE AWARDED NOBEL IN CHEMISTRY

Two other Americans received a physics Nobel for discovering subatomic particles.

The chemistry prize went to Mario Molina of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sherwood Rowland of the University of California at Irvine, and Paul Crutzen, a Dutch citizen working at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany.

Work by Molina and Rowland predicting an ozone ``hole'' laid the groundwork for its discovery in 1985 over the South Pole.

``The three researchers have contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences,'' said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

The Nobel in physics went to Martin L. Perl of Stanford University and Frederick Reines of the University of California at Irvine.

Reines, a 77-year-old physicist and professor emeritus with a penchant for quoting Shakespeare and singing Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, is hospitalized with an undisclosed illness.

``It's sort of ironic,'' said a colleague who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``He's deserved this for many, many years. It comes now when he's ill and not able to fully appreciate it.''

Reines was honored for discovering in the 1950s the neutrino, one of the smallest particles in the universe. Perl was honored for research in the 1970s into another subatomic particle, called the tau lepton.

The Royal Swedish Academy said their work answered questions about ``the smallest constituents of the universe'' and ``what they can tell us of the history of the universe and of its future.''

The work by the winners of the chemistry prize led industrial countries to agree to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons by 1996, a move some scientists continue to question.

``I believe that the Swedish Academy has chosen to make a political statement,'' said S. Fred Singer, a Fairfax, Va., physicist who designed the instrument used in satellites to measure ozone. Singer said it remains unclear whether CFCs are responsible for the ozone hole.

Molina, 52, and Rowland, 68, working separately from Crutzen, reported in 1974 that the CFC gases used in spray cans, refrigerators and other items threatened the ozone layer.

They calculated that if the use of CFC gases continued without lessening, there would be a significant depletion in the ozone layer, the natural barrier against cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Crutzen also explained in 1970 how nitrogen oxides react with ozone to accelerate the reduction of the layer.

Molina said he sees his Nobel Prize as vindication for the field of environmental science, long belittled by mainstream scientists. ``This shows that one can do rigorous science that is hypothetical, but can also be tested and applied,'' he said.