Meeting notice: The 01-04-99 Meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Royal East (782 Main St., Cambridge), a block down from the corner of Main St. and Mass Ave. Suggested topic: Performance Enhancers and Competitive Sports Recent polls suggest that 30% or more of all competitors in elite sports -- the kinds that charge admission -- take PEs. It is now routine for losers in events to charge, often quite convincingly, that they were bested by chemistry. These trends are enormously threatening to everyone involved with the affected sports, other perhaps than the drug users themselves. Sports relies for its cultural presence on its success at evoking the myths of Divine gifts, personal discipline, and the will to win. Outcomes that are seen as determined by differences in drug consumption do not express our sense of what makes a hero, at least not for most of us. The news about PEs is demoralizing to athletes, who fear that if they win at anything they will indict themselves for being dirty, fans, and, of course, the industry. While the Olympics has not said much about this problem, they must be terrified. The usual reaction to these trends is to call for ever more onerous, invasive, and expensive regimes of drug testing. The assumption of that opinion is that if the society only tries hard enough, PEs can be kept out of sports. I think it is fair to guess that those on this list are likely to feel this policy both doomed and ill-advised; that the years to come will bring a steadily larger pharmacology, ever more ingenious evasion regimes, and wider usage patterns. The policy that follows from those assumptions is to legalize everything undetectable at any given moment. Trying to ban the unbannable not only makes the banners look ridiculous (which to some is a good thing) but prevents the candid exchange of real experiences by those most affected, and is this exchange that is needed most at the moment. The nanotech pov is one that sees a smooth spectrum stretching from today's artificial testosterones to copper wire nerves, polymer muscles, diamond bones, kevlar skin, and gallium arsenide reflex processors. One question worth considering is whether a policy of legalizing the undetectable fully accounts for the challenges such a future will raise to sports mythology. <><><><><><><><><> Bookmark pick: members should be aware of the recent beta release of MDL's great CHIME 2.0, probably the best molecular viewing tool. Links and download at http://www/mdli.com. Once you have it check out the Online Macromolecular Museum: http://www.kenyon.edu/depts/bmb/chime/galley.htm. Announcement Archive: http://world.std.com/~fhapgood/nsgpage.html. Comments to: hapgood@pobox.com