January 29, 1992

Nearly a year after the Government recognized the Pacific yew as the most valuable tree in American forests because it yields a rare cancer-fighting drug, the precious bark is still being burned as scrap and discarded to rot on the forest floor in wasteful logging operations in the Northwest. Here in the Umpqua National Forest one January day, a crew of Forest Service workers set fire to a huge pile of downed trees, the garbage of a typical logging operation on Government land. But among the wood smoldering in the pile were several yew trees covered with sections of bark.

FOR the finale of Calvin Klein's men's fashion show Monday, the models came out in their skivvies. Some of the women in the audience were in stitches, although Madonna didn't raise a plucked eyebrow. Many of the men seemed slightly embarrassed. The models seemed terrifically abashed.

Henry Burkhardt is scheming to ambush the computer industry. His radically different supercomputer, intended for both scientific and commercial markets, has still not been formally introduced, although a handful of university and government research labs are putting prototypes through the paces of Big Science number crunching. But in recent weeks, Mr. Burkhardt's design has fired an emotional debate inside the usually clinically calm community of elite scientists and engineers who build the world's fastest computers.

Like all physicians, Dr. James L. Baker Jr., a plastic surgeon practicing near Orlando, Fla., has spent his professional life making medical decisions in a climate of scientific uncertainty. But he does seem certain about one thing: the safety of silicone gel breast implants. Whenever scientific studies have questioned this assumption, Dr. Baker, like most of his colleagues, has given these implants the benefit of every doubt.

NEW YORK CITY ASSESSING DINKINS'S PLANS