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Two years ago, Joseph Alexander, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University, returned to his Nashville, Tenn., position after a six-month stay in Japan, during which he learned how to apply nonlinear systems theory to models of biological systems. It's a new field, but one in which his hosts at Kyushu University already excel. Today, Alexander's fond memories of his NSF-sponsored visit are still very much alive. Indeed, about his life in the city of Fukuoka, wher

-------- MacArthur Funds Environment Studies The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, through its World Environment and Resources Program, fundsresearch aimed at increasing scientific and popular understanding of the functioning, extent, and value of tropical biotic systems. Eligible areas of study include biological inventories, biogeographic studies, ecological research, natural resource management, endangered species recovery programs, conservation education, design and protectio

Analytical chemists and lab managers based on the West Coast of the United States traditionally have had to travel long distances to attend major trade expositions in their field. The Pittsburgh Conference--commonly known as PittCon--the "grandaddy" of analytical shows, for example, usually is held in New York or New Orleans and has never made it farther west than Chicago. While smaller, regional conferences take place in many areas, they tend to emphasize scientific meetings and presentations

WASHINGTON--The National Science Foundation has reshuffled its grant-making bureaucracy to give greater prominence to the social and behavioral sciences. The reorganization, announced earlier this month by NSF director Walter Massey, also addresses simmering problems within the foundation's policy analysis and survey research programs that have led to congressional inquiries and heated debate within the field. The new NSF organizational chart, as described by Massey during a meeting of its gov

NSF Gets Lots More For Education Isn't That Good Enough President Upgrades NSF Fellowship More Help For SSC Accelerations What No Bubble Gum? In hammering out this year's budget, science education has emerged as a favored child of federal legislators. The 1992 NSF budget, which was approved earlier this month, now contains a 44 percent increase over last year's allotment, to $465 million, for education and human resources, after legislators added $75 million to President Bush's request

VOLUME 5, No:19 The Scientist September 30, 1991 PRESIDENT BESTOWS 20 SCIENCE MEDALS -------- WASHINGTON--President Bush recently honored 20 scientists for their lifetime achievements. A September 16 White House ceremony marked the annual presentation of the National Medal of Science. At the ceremony, the president also presented the National Medal of Technology to 18 researchers for their achievements in advanced manufacturing and technology, product and process innovation,

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund offers a five-year, $300,000 Scholar Award to a researcher in the field of clinical pharmacology. Any degree-granting medical school in the United States may nominate a senior researcher for the award. To be eligible, a nominee must have been selected to develop a new research and teaching unit devoted to clinical pharmacology, serve as a focus for research and teaching of the discipline in an institution with no department specifically devoted to it, or be a member

(p.4) More Cracked Than Shattered Underfunded States Get DOE Boost Supercollider Lab Looks Outward NIH Makes First Shannon Awards Down For The Count More Cracked Than Shattered Are women being repressed in their scientific pursuits? The presence last month of a standing-room-only audience of more than 400 women (and perhaps a half-dozen men) in an NIH auditorium testified to the pertinence of the question at a Women's Equality Day program on the issue of "Shattering the Glass Ceiling."

Three computers - an IBM PC and two Sun workstations-sit on the desk of molecular biologist Richard Roberts, assistant director for research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. Roberts routinely uses all three in the course of a day, moving easily from word processing to a search of DNA and protein databases to a display of sequences, and to running simulation models of DNA methylases, special proteins that stop restriction enzymes from cutting bits of genetic material. "I loo

WASHINGTON -- Clinical investigators trying to include more women and minorities in their studies must rethink the traditional researcher-subject relationships and pay more attention to the needs of populations. And while the immediate costs of complying with federal mandates for increasing the use of underrepresented populations as research subjects may be significant, the long-term consequences of not doing so may be considerable, they say. "When I sit on committees, I hear members of re

Research parks usually exist on university land that is leased for a long term. The parks host industrial scientists and other workers, as well as university researchers from natural science and occasionally social science disciplines. The main attraction to private industry is the university, particularly access to its faculty and educated work force, libraries, and special instrumentation facilities. For university scientists, the draw is the added vigor of aligning their work with a company'

With tougher laws and renewed investor confidence, opportunity blossoms for many scientific disciplines Imagine a machine that enables you to dump waste in one end and get products out of the other. No sorting required. No noxious gases or hazardous byproducts produced. Sound like science fiction? Well, it is science, but thanks to a new technology being developed at Cambridge, Mass.-based Molten Metal Technology, such a scenario is no longer fiction. Molten Metal is one of a handful of young