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NEW HAVEN, Conn.--Patricia Goldman-Rakic, sitting in her office at Yale University, is talking to a visitor about the problems and pleasures of being married to another scientist when her department chairman knocks on her door and enters. He explains that he's normally more polite but that, since she is his wife, he takes certain liberties. They smile, then he gets down to the business at hand--copy for an advertisement for a new journal, Cerebral Cortex, of which they are coeditors. She skims

Following is a list of all eleven married couples who are members of the National Academy of Sciences. It includes the year of their election to NAS as well as their discipline and affiliation: Maurice Goldhaber (1958) and Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber (1972), Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory Leo M. Hurvich (1975) and Dorothea Jameson (1975), Psychology, University of Pennsylvania John W. Kappler (1989) and Philippa Marrack (1989), Microbiology and Immunology, Howard Hughes Medical Inst

UPTON, N.Y.--Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber has pulled out a few faded, blue three-ring binders, several books, and other reprints. It's a two-foot pile of paper that provides tangible evidence of her half-century of work as a physicist. The documentation is unnecessary. The fact that she belongs to the National Academy of Sciences seems proof enough that her work is important. But Scharff-Goldhaber persists. As one-half of a marriage that began during an era when women scientists were consistentl

A wide range of scientific challenges spawns a surge in basic research for this once unacclaimed discipline Most researchers long believed that the sense of smell was genetically determined and, therefore, unchangeable. But at least one scientist--Charles Wysocki of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia--doubted this theory. Wysocki, a psychobiologist who investigates the genetics of olfaction in the 45 percent of the adult population who can't detect androstenone, a component in s

While a workable policy for modified organisms stays unresolved, scientists laud recent developments WASHINGTON--Congress and the Bush administration are moving along parallel tracks in search of a more efficient and comprehensive system to regulate the testing and mass production of genetically modified organisms. Most industrial scientists, academics, and environ- mentalists hail this movement as a sign of progress toward resolving this major obstacle for the biotechnology industry. At the s

But advocates wonder if the kind of research body they have in mind can survive turf skirmishes in the Washington ecosystem WASHINGTON--Ecologists scored a victory last month when Congress earmarked $400,000 for the Environmental Protection Agency to sponsor an independent evaluation of the nation's environmental research. Scientists view this study, which EPA initially opposed as unnecessary, as a first step toward creating a national environmental research institute. As envisioned, this new

ENDOTHELIN: A WHOLE-BODY APPROACH John Burnett's team has been on a winning streak in the past few months as the Mayo group of clinicians had two more endothelin studies accepted for publication: one appeared in the August issue of the American Journal of Physiology (P.G. Cavaro, et al., "Endothelin in experimental congestive heart failure in the anesthetized dog," 259:F312-17, August 1990), and one is to be published in the January 1991 issue of Circulation. The team also presen

Westinghouse Searches For Science Talent The Westinghouse Science Talent Search is boosting its awards total this year from $140,000 to $205,000. High school seniors can apply for these scholarships to fund individual research projects in science, mathematics, and engineering at the college or university of their choice. Forty finalists will receive scholarships ranging from $1,000 (30 recipients) to $40,000 (one recipient). Westinghouse will also pick up the tab for a five-day trip to Washing

Since its establishment in 1957, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions in medical science, has earned a reputation as a "Nobel predictor" prize. The award, given each year by the Gairdner Foundation of Ontario, Canada, has lived up to its reputation again this year. Within the same week in October, E. Donnall Thomas, director emeritus of the division of clinical research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, received both the

But while access to DOD data could be a boon to global change scientists, some of them worry about ties with the military WASHINGTON--The Department of Defense is planning a dramatic increase in its support of environmental research that could provide scientists with valuable data and resources in their study of global change. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has proposed DOD's first-ever direct contribution next year to the government's interagency global research program, and last month C

Cast-Off Creationist Talks Back AIDS Funding Spurs Competition Huband In At ASEE No Hard Feelings, NSF Tells MIT A recent contributor to the popular "Amateur Scientist" column in Scientific American has taken to the nation's airwaves to complain that the magazine refuses to run any more of his columns because of his belief in creationism. Forrest Mims, III, a prolific science journalist from Seguin, Texas, has appeared on several talk shows and alleged that editor Jonathan Piel reneged

Everyone is using them, and a new study will try to learn how computer networks have changed the practice of science MADISON, Wisc.--The mail, as usual, is waiting for University of Wisconsin mathematician and psychologist Dennis Fryback when he arrives at his office. But it's not exactly "stacked up"; it's more "loaded in." This morning's batch--data from an off-campus collaborator about their research on cancer treatment cost effectiveness, a citation Fryback had requested from an editor in