The following press conference at the American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting will take place in room 516 of the Los Angeles Convention Center. The newsroom itself will be room 517, where the phone numbers are 213-743-6237 and -6238; the fax number is 213-741- 3924.

MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS (MEMS). Monday, March 16, 1 PM. MEMS are whole machines or detectors on a chip. The accelerometer that triggers the airbag in your car is a prominent example. Michael Roukes of Caltech (818-395-2916) will describe how research in this area is now moving from the micron level down into the nanometer level. He will describe a number of MEMS devices, including a new mechanical electrometer and ultra- low-power signal processing (paper E5.01). William Tang of JPL (818-354-2052) will report on the micro-gizmos to be put into NASA's next generation of "faster, smaller, cheaper" spacecraft (paper E5.05).