What effect climate has on life and the conditions under which life might be supported on other planets was a subject explored recently by a group of scientists including HARLOW SHAPLEY.AS Paine Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Harvard Observatory, Harlow Shapley became internationally known for his famous studies of the Galaxies. The article which follows is part of a book, Climatic Change, by Dr. Shapley and others, to be published in December for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by Harvard University Press.

The son of a famous French physiologist, JEAN MAYERcame to the United States before the war to pursue his studies; but the war called him home, and as a Gaullist he fought for five years with the Free French forces. He got a Ph.D. at Yale Medical School in 1948, a D.Sc. from the Sorbonne, and in 1950 joined the faculty of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, where his studies on obesity have attracted wide attention.