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Military Spending Spurs Interest In Research on Biological Weapons

By Seth Shulman | December 15, 1986

Date: December 15, 1986 BOSTON-A sharp increase in U.S. military spending for research on biological warfare agents has raised concern about its effect on related fields and sparked debate on the nature of the work. The Defense Department expects to spend $73.2 million in 1987 on biological weapons research, a figure that has risen from $14.9 million at the start of the Reagan administration. Douglas Feith, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, told a House sub-co

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NIH's Raub on Misconduct

By Tabitha Powledge | December 15, 1986

Author: Tabitha M. Powledge Date: December 15, 1986 In August, William F Raub, a 20-year veteran of the National Institutes of Health, was named its deputy director. Raub received an A.B. from Wilkes College in 1961 and his Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. He directed the development of PROPHET—an integrated computer system for studying chemical/biological interrelationships. From 1983-1986, he headed the agency's extramural program, including all research

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NSF Offers New Funding For Women

December 15, 1986

WASHINGTON—The National Science Foundation has added two awards to its Research Opportunities for Women program that will provide funds for planning grants and career advancement. “The new programs were de signed to provide further opportunities and more flexibility to women scientists and engineers,” said Margrete S. Klein, program coordinator for the Research Opportunities for Women pro-gram. “The Research Planning Grants encourage women to pre pare grant proposals and

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NSF Sends A Verbal Aftershock

December 15, 1986

WASHINGTON-NSF Director Erich Bloch has administered a public wrist-slapping to the president of the State University of New York at Buffalo for material in its proposal for an Earthquake Engineering Research Center that was copied from another document on the subject. "It's not plagiarism.' Bloch told members of the National Science Board at their recent meeting, "but it is copying without acknowledgement. I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but it was sloppy work and I think we

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Old-Boy Network Alive, Poll Says

By Victoria Contie | December 15, 1986

Date: December 15, 1986 WASHINGTON-Irregular funding and public ignorance are major problems facing scientists today, according to a survey of members of the scientific honor society Sigma Xi. The respondents believe that the distribution of government grants depends largely on "who you know" and that it is difficult for institutions lacking state-of-the-art equipment to obtain funds. The survey of more than 4,000 scientists in the United States and Canada was conducted by Sigma Xi as part of it

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Science Lobby Seeks Funds

By Jeffrey Mervis | December 15, 1986

WASHINGTON—A clearer focus and greater financial support from private industry hold the key to the survival of the National Coalition for Science and Technology. The Coalition, formed in 1981, has struggled to persuade the scientific community that it needs an overtly political organization to advocate greater resources for science. Its new slogan, “NCST—The Science Lobby,” is meant to highlight its broad focus and set it apart from the hundreds of associations and orga

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Search for Animal Alternatives Faces Rough Road

By Tom Watkins | December 15, 1986

NEW YORK—Revlon has decided to end its support of a major university research effort into in vitro alternatives to the use of animals in product testing and research. Its action is the latest obstacle to progress in a field hampered by inadequate funding and differing approaches to the problem. The Laboratory for In Vitro Toxicologic Assay Development at The Rockefeller University was created six years ago by Revlon after intense pressure by animal rights activists to find an alternative

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Select Scientists Get Long-Term NIH Grants

By Mark Bello | December 15, 1986

WASHINGTON-Her scientific challenge is daunting: to understand better how the AIDS virus is transmitted among heterosexuals. But an even bigger problem facing Margaret Fischl was her prolonged absence from the task to prepare her application for renewed support from the National Cancer Institute. An associate professor of internal medicine and director of the AIDS Clinical Research Program at the University of Miami Medical Center, Fischl knew the renewal process also would mean a new round of r

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Small Business Grants: A Program That Works

By Don Veraska | December 15, 1986

WASHINGTON—A small Salt Lake City horticultural firm thought it had a marketable idea when it found strains of a fungus that significantly improves the ability of plants to absorb water and nutrients. But Native Plants Inc. didn't have enough money to conduct the necessary research, and venture capital companies weren't interested in an unknown company. Enter the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, an attempt to share a small part of the federal R&D budget with small, high-

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U.K. View Is 'Sobering'

By Bernard Dixon | December 15, 1986

BRISTOL, ENGLAND—A survey of adults in Britain has found that: Three-quarters believe astrology is scientific, but only a bare majority believe ecology is; 33 percent of the population believe that penicillin attacks viruses; 20 percent see carbon dioxide as the chief cause of acid rain; 37 percent believe proteins “provide most of the energy needs of the human body,” and 19 percent chose vitamins. Only 36 percent chose carbohydrates. Those sobering findings are pa

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