August 1, 2000

Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat reportedly are close to nine-player trade in which Anthony Mason and Eddie Jones would join Heat in return for P J Brown and Jamal Washburn; photo (M)

Lasik (Laser in-situ keratomileusis) has become a $3-billion-a-year industry and the prize in a turf war being waged by traditional opthalmologists, high-volume centers like Lasik Vision and LaserOne and a third arrangement called co-management, in which a patient's optometrist handles the initial evaluation and postoperative care in exchange for part of the surgeon's fee; an estimated 1.2 Americans will undergo Lasik surgery next year to correct nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism, most of them paying out of their own pockets for a procedure deemed cosmetic by insurance companies; marketing materials from traditional Lasik surgeons often darkly hint that their cheaper competitors might be skimping to make a profit; high-volume operations contend that traditional surgeon's fee of over $5,000 for two eyes is excessive; photos; drawing (L)

Shimon Peres, three-time prime minister of Israel and one of most enduring standard-bearers for Middle East peace, is defeated by Iranian-born Moshe Katsav, relatively obscure figure, in contest in parliament to become Israel's eighth president; despite distinguished career replete with many honors including Nobel Prize, defeat will almost certainly mark him as one of Israel's great losers; he has lost four of five elections for prime minister, as well as leadership battles within Labor Party that relegated him to runner-up status, first behind late Yitzhak Rabin and current Prime Min Ehud Barak; photo (M)

Argentine ants are overwhelming native California ants while forming what scientists believe may be a supercolony stretching from San Diego to north of San Francisco; are are so genetically similar that different colonies do not fight with one another, as they do with fierceness in Argentina, and present a united family front to win territory from native California ants, which are vital to survival of certain plant and lizard species; supercolony also poses unsolved riddle about the evolution of so-called unicolonial insects and even raises possibility of an insect world dominated by invasive unicolonial species; photo (M)

A Start-Up Recruits People To Donate DNA to Science A California start-up, DNA Sciences, is introducing a Web site that will recruit people to donate their DNA to help find genes that cause disease. The company hopes to get 50,000 to 100,000 people to contribute to its ''gene trust'' by appealing to their altruism. The new effort reflects a big change taking place in genetics. Studies to link genes to disease are starting to be conducted on an unprecedented scale. While such studies promise to lead to big medical advances, the collection of genetic data on such a wide scale is also raising ethical and privacy issues. [Page A1.]