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LONDON—A novel international data base compiled on floppy disks may soon help American scientists disseminate their ideas for commercial applications of their work. This new venture in worldwide technology transfer is called Techstart International Inc. The New York company was founded by two entrepreneurs, Peter Ruof, formerly of the World Bank, and Paris del L'Etraz, a computer systems analyst with the Union Bank of Switzerland. The company plans to develop a network of national boards t

TRIESTE—This week Arturo Falaschi takes charge of 900 square meters of laboratory and office space in a newly completed facility just outside Trieste in northern Italy. He does so as director of the Italian portion of the new International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), set up by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to bring the benefits of recombinant DNA and associated technologies to Third World countries. The Trieste lab and its coun

WASHINGTON—Some members of Congress are urging the administration to do more to carry out a law passed last year to help U.S. researchers and industry stay abreast of Japanese competition. At a Senate subcommittee hearing last month, Commerce Department officials were asked about their progress in implementing the Japanese Technical Literature Act. The act calls for the government to monitor technical developments in Japan, consult with the private sector about its needs for such informati

WASHINGTON—The changing nature of the field of mathematics has spawned efforts to alter the way math is taught in elementary and secondary school classrooms. The National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, working with educators and policy-makers, have launched long-term projects to reform curricula, tests and textbooks. A key ingredient is expanded use of calculators and computers in the classroom. Last fall the National Science Foundation awa

LONDON—Researchers around the world foresee few practical repercussions from last month's Papal instruction that bans in vitro fertilization and other procreative procedures not involving sexual intercourse. An informal worldwide survey by The Scientist found some concern that politicians might seek to obey the Vatican's injunction to embody the new Catholic doctrine in civil law, but most political commentators consider this very unlikely. In Ireland, Tony Walsh, who runs the IVF and GIFT

WASHINGTON—At 1:30 p.m. today, around the corner from the White House, high school students plan to set loose one thousand balloons with self-addressed information cards. They will join 224,000 balloons launched simultaneously around the country by students from 600 schools, in one of the more visible displays of National Science and Technology Week '87. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and funded largely by corporate donors, Science Week is observing its third year. Its messag

ATLANTA—Are academic microbiology departments suffering from the increased attention being paid to molecular biology and related disciplines? Scientists at the recent annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology here could not agree if the issue was simply a semantic argument or a symptom of a genuine crisis. "A number of forces are converging to create a problem … and together they may deal us a blow that could be lethal" to the future of microbiology, suggested M. Michae

WASHINGTON—Resignations of top officials at two biotechnology companies and predictions of lackluster earnings sent their stock prices tumbling last month. Applied Biosystems Inc. announced that Sam Eletr, the company's founder and chairman, was stepping down for personal reasons. It also said it expected third-quarter earnings to decline because of product delays and weak orders from Europe. Following that news, its stock dropped from $41.40 to $30 a share. The Foster City, Calif., firm,

WASHINGTON—The National Science Foundation plans to increase the budget of a new research program for undergraduates after receiving an unexpectedly large number of applicants from universities and other research facilities around the country. Rushing to meet a March 1 deadline on less than three months' notice, researchers submitted proposals to hire groups of students to work at more than 600 sites as part of NSF's new Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Alan Leshner,

BRUSSELS—European research ministers are making a last-ditch effort to break a stalemate over the Community's five-year budget for research and development. Last month the ministers rejected a Belgian plan for a budget of $6.4 billion (5.8 billion ECU)151;a compromise between the $8.5 billion demanded by the European Commission and the $4.4 billion suggested by the three largest member states (Britain, France and West Germany). At stake is the future of the EEC's collaborative research pro

GAITHERSBURG, MD—The government could attract and retain a greater share of top-quality scientists and engineers if it could offer them more competitive salaries, hire them more quickly, and award raises and promotions on individual performance. That belief, held by research administrators both inside and outside government, is the driving force behind a five-year experiment at the National Bureau of Standards. Responding to a successful demonstration project begun in 1980 at two Navy work

WASHINGTON—A National Science Foundation proposal to spend $50 million next year on up to 20 science and technology centers, touted by Director Erich Bloch as a partial solution to the country's economic problems, is actually an untested idea that has raised numerous questions among the scientific community. NSF is supporting three separate efforts, one in-house, to help it decide how to create, operate and evaluate such basic research facilities. Congress has already heard Xestimony from