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AMA Report Urges Boost In Research

By Jeffrey Mervis | March 9, 1987

CHICAGO—A five-year study by the American Medical Association and 171 other public and private organizations to influence the future of health care policy in the United States has recommended a 10 percent annual increase in NIH funding, tax breaks for pharmaceutical and other companies that conduct biomedical research and increased cooperative ventures between universities and private industry. The report's findings were summarized here February 16 at the annual meeting of the American Ass

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Berlin to Form Academy

By Richard Sietmann | March 9, 1987

WEST BERLIN—A new Academy of Science to be created here has sharpened debate about the best way to improve the quality of research carried out in the city. On March 12 the city's parliament is expected to pass a bill introduced by the governing Christian Democrats to establish such an academy, the sixth in West Germany and the second in this divided city. (The academy in East Berlin is the legal successor of the Prussian Academy of Science, founded in 1700). There has been talk for many ye

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Cape of Cetus Corp. on the NIH Budget and Competitiveness

March 9, 1987

While working in his family's pharmaceutical business in Montreal in the mid-1960s, Ronald E. Cape was among those who saw commercial possibilities in the unfolding mystery of DNA. Cape, who had a B.A. in chemistry from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Harvard University, decided to study biochemistry. After receiving a Ph.D. from McGill University, he did postdoctoral work in genetics at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1971 he co-founded Cetus Corporation and became its chai

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D

March 9, 1987

STOCKHOLM—The Swedish government hopes to increase its budget for research and development by $180 million over the next three years. The 3 percent increase will raise its R&D spending, already among the highest in the world at a rate of 2.7 percent of Gross National Product, to $5.7 billion. Nearly one-half of the new money will go into higher education, new research posts and professorships. The government will also push ahead with its controversial plan to compel commercial banks to con

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D Policy

By Peter Pockley | March 9, 1987

WELLINGTON, N.Z.—There are prospects for a major change in science and technology policy in New Zealand following the release of a comprehensive and plain-speaking report. The report, completed in December but just now being discussed, said the "key to prosperity" lies in moving the nation rapidly toward a Scandanavian-type economy based on science and technology, (e.g. small, high-value, high tech products in medicine, electronics and biotechnology). The report is named after Sir David Be

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Decoding the Great Recombinant DNA Debate

By Ralph Wf Hardy | March 9, 1987

The Gene-Splicing Wars: Reflections on the Recombinant DNA Controversy. Raymond A. Zilinskas and Burke K. Zimmerman, eds. Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1986. 288 pages. $24.95. Recombinant DNA became part of the vocabulary of scientists and the public in the 1970s. During that decade a fierce debate—not a war— on the biological hazards of rDNA research raged. Many of the scientists involved view it as one of the most anguished and bitter controversies in modern science. Th

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Diesel: The Man and the Engine

By John Rae | March 9, 1987

Diesel: Technology and Society in Industrial Germany. Donald E. Thomas, Jr. The University of Alabama Press, University, 1987. 291 pp., illus. $26.95. The life of Rudolf Diesel invites attention. Here was a man with a brilliant achievement to his credit, a novel power plant with the potential for revolutionizing industry and transportation. The creation of the diesel engine called for both scientific insight and technical skill, and Diesel demonstrated convincingly that he possessed both. Yet,

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Establish a Trust Fund for Science Research

By Philip Speser | March 9, 1987

President Reagan has proposed doubling the National Science Foundation (NSF) basic research budget by 1992. Equally important, he states in his budget message: "The Nation's future position in global markets will depend upon: the allocation of national resources to the generation of new knowledge; and the effective and timely transfer of this new knowledge to specific applications." This noble statement could as easily have been made by countless senators or representatives. Despite these noble

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Happenings

March 9, 1987

Harlyn 0. Halvorson, professor of biology and director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center at Brandeis University, has been elected president and director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. In 1962 Halvorson taught the summer physiology course at MBL and served as an instructor there through 1967. Since that time he has been an MBL summer investigator. Halvorson has taught at several universities, including the University of Michigan Medical School, the

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How Scientists Control the News

By Dorothy Nelkin | March 9, 1987

"True descendants of Prometheus, science writers take the fire from the scientific Olympus, the laboratories and the universities, and bring it down to the people." That was how William Laurence, a science writer for The New York Times, described the work of science writers in the 1930s. Fifty years later, many scientists might be more likely to compare their opposite numbers in the media to the troublesome Pandora, whose impulsive opening of the box sent by Zeus unleashed a host of evils on hum

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