The Boston Globe published excerpts this morning from e-mail messages between a star neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a young postdoc whom he was seeking to dissuade—yes, dissuade—from accepting a job at MIT because their research interests coincided and he is said to have regarded her as a rival.

The Globe, which broke the story two weeks ago, cites one message in which the young researcher, Alla Karpova, urged the senior scientist, Susumu Tonegawa, to give her a chance, even pledging to stay away from research areas he considered his own. Mr. Tonegawa has denied trying to interfere in the job offer, but the Globe quotes him as saying in one message to Mr. Karpova that “unpleasant competition will be unavoidable.”

Ms. Karpova eventually turned down the MIT offer, but the outcry over her treatment spurred the university’s president to convene a committee to examine allegations that Mr. Tonegawa, a Nobel laureate, bullied her away. The inquiry is only the latest of several to look into accusations that MIT is an unwelcoming place for female academics (The Chronicle, July 16).