February 8, 1994

BEAUTY is only skin deep. How sweet that old chestnut is, equally comforting to the unbeautiful, who know they have so much beyond physical appearance to offer the world, and the beautiful, who, after years of being pursued for their prettiness, really do want to be loved for their inner selves. The only problem with the cliche, say evolutionary biologists, is that it may not be true. In the view of a growing number of researchers who study why animals are attracted to each other, a beautiful face and figure may be alluring not for whimsical esthetic reasons, but because outward beauty is a reasonably reliable indicator of underlying quality. These biologists have gathered evidence from studies of species as diverse as zebra finches, scorpion flies, elk and human beings that creatures appraise the overall worthiness of a potential mate by looking for at least one classic benchmark of beauty: symmetry.

Two months after his death, President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, one of the last of a generation of African leaders to guide his people from colonialism, finally received a somber state funeral today in the world's largest church, which he had built in his ancestral village. The 7,000 guests inside the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, and the tens of thousands of mourners who endured withering equatorial heat in the huge esplanade outside, witnessed what it seems safe to say was the most lavish ceremony ever held to pay homage to an African leader. A Mix of Traditions All the panoply of Western religious liturgy mixed with traditional African customs were on display here, Mr. Houphouet-Boigny's birthplace: the stirring music of Handel and Gounod; the undulating music and dance of ancient African rituals; a huge chorus dressed in bright batik dress singing "laagoh budji gnia," the Baoule-language words for "Lord, it is you who has made all things"; a military honor guard dressed in bright red coats and brandishing glittering swords, and hundreds of village elders, resplendent in huge multi-colored strips of kente and korhogo cloth.

The top law-enforcement officer in the Treasury Department, Faith Shapiro Hochberg, was recommended today to be the next United States Attorney for New Jersey. Mrs. Hochberg would replace Michael Chertoff, who said today that he would step down about May 1 after four years as the state's top Federal prosecutor. One of his most sensational cases involved the successful prosecution of the former Chief Justice of New York, Sol Wachtler, on charges that Mr. Wachtler threatened to kidnap the 14-year-old daughter of his former lover.

DR. WILLIAM CASTELLI, the director of the Framingham Heart Study, was not always renowned for his bon mots and memorable quotes, which have helped make the concept of "good" and "bad" cholesterol familiar to millions of Americans and prompted them to recast their diets and exercise habits to save their hearts. He remembers all too well his first professional lecture, when he tried to demonstrate the role of a new cholesterol-lowering drug to a group of general practitioners. Scrawling away on a blackboard with his back to the audience, he painstakingly detailed all 26 steps in cholesterol metabolism. But when he turned on the last step to deliver the punch line about the drug's action, he found the entire audience, including his wife, sound asleep.

Heart Attack Help Federal officials urge that heart patients be given clot-busting drugs within 30 minutes of arrival at a hospital. Science Times, page C8.