October 20, 1992

Two 14-year-old girls walking across an intersection and a 16-year-old boy standing nearby were shot outside a Bronx high school yesterday afternoon by an assailant who blazed away with a rifle or a shotgun and fled on foot. The police said the girls, both honor students in the freshman class of a school with a reputation for weapons and violence, apparently were bystanders caught in a shooting that stemmed from an earlier dispute between the gunman and the boy, who was critcally wounded. Investigators said the boy knew and gave the police the name of the assailant, who was being sought last night.

MOST scientific names are dull and pedantic, and usually as impenetrable as the Latin in which Linnaeus named all species known to him. But recently a strange whimsy has started to creep in among the sesquipedalian prose of scientific journals. A few scientists are attaching catchy terms like "chaos" or "chaperone molecules" to the things they discover. The trend may represent a slap at tradition, or perhaps a shrewd sense that a popular name can win a theory more attention and financing.

There will be many winners come Election Day, but it is already clear who the big losers in politics are this year. They are the people who print the brochures, mail the fliers, take the polls and broadcast the spots for the candidates. Election Day is to this industry what Christmas is to retailing, and neither Democrats nor Republicans are buying big this season.

FRENCH divers have discovered a partly flooded cave filled with prehistoric rock paintings and engravings, a great underground amphitheater studded with running horses, bison and deer as well as images of human hands believed to have been drawn some 18,000 years ago. The cave lies deep inside a cliff on the edge of the Mediterranean. Its murals have surprised specialists because they include drawings of seals and penguins, the first images of such sea creatures ever found in Western Europe's prehistoric caves. Seals still exist here today but the penguins are an unusual souvenir from an era when much of Europe was under ice and the Mediterranean was a chilly region with a climate more like today's Scandinavia.

Mandela Admits Abuses The African National Congress admitted that it tortured dissidents during its years in exile. Page A7. Britain Softens on Mine Cuts Under pressure, Prime Minister John Major sharply reduced the number of coal mines to be closed. Page A9. 19 (Yep, 19) Candidates Jersey City voters have 19 choices for their next mayor. Some residents say that's too many. Page B10. Creatures at Play Scientists are learning to appreciate how important play is to animal development. Science Times, page C1.