October 31, 1995

For years, many doctors practiced their profession in a cut-and-dried way: they hung out shingles and tended to their patients. But the Medicare and Medicaid measures working their way through Congress could remold the role of many doctors, turning them into medical entrepreneurs and permitting them to engage in business enterprises that are now forbidden. The legislation is an important victory for the American Medical Association after years in which doctors have complained about losses of income and authority in the age of managed care.

Merger Mania Nears Record-Setting Pace The wave of corporate consolidations is likely to set a record this year. The pace is as feverish as it was in the last three years of the 1980's, the decade of the takeover.

Life, as far as scientists can tell, gained a foothold on earth almost as soon as possible, then took an exceedingly long time rising above its simple origins and finally, 530 million years ago, erupted in a springtime of riotous proliferation. In an astonishingly brief time, insects, earthworms, corals, sponges, mollusks and animals with rudimentary backbones -- all the major body plans of today -- made their first appearance in what is known as the Cambrian Explosion. But there are many yawning gaps in this early history of life, and so scientists welcomed reports last week of three discoveries. The reports offered important refinements in the timing of three events that have puzzled scientists trying to reconstruct the mysterious first steps in the emergence of life. The events are the introduction of large multicellular organisms, the existence of some flat jellyfish-like organisms as possible predecessors of Cambrian life and the emergence of chordates, the core group of vertebrates that would eventually include humans.

In the first major revision of New York City's housing policy in almost two decades, the Giuliani administration announced yesterday that it was ending the city's role as the landlord of last resort. Under the change, which makes official a practice that has been in effect informally for two years, the city will no longer take over ownership and management of all buildings whose owners fall far behind on property taxes. Instead, it will give the existing owners advice and even direct financial help in paying their tax debt.

Helicopters patrolled the skies, extra firefighters were on duty and 3,000 volunteers fanned out through Camden last night, trying to prevent vandals from setting Halloween Eve fires. A "Mischief Night" spree in 1991 resulted in 133 fires. Since then, residents have successfully organized to control arson on Oct. 30.