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EUGENE, Oreg.--Janis Weeks looks up and smiles as the sounds of young voices drift through an open window on the University of Oregon campus. The neurobiologist points out her young son, one of a half-dozen youngsters walking hand-in-hand across the quad to the day care center. Her belly bulging, Weeks is expecting her second child sometime this month. Weeks is a proud mother and she is also the proud recipient of a 1989 Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) award, a prestigious honor bestowed

Before Margaret Rossiter wrote her book Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1982), science historians had not paid much attention to women scientists. There was the occasional bibliography, but no survey of what Rossiter found were large numbers of underrecognized and underemployed women who had managed to work in the lab. Rossiter transformed dusty records archived letters, manuscripts and obituaries of women's past scientif

In spite of traditional gender biases women scientists may have encountered as students and as working researchers, they are tackling tough research problems and handling them well.

If you say something often enough, maybe people will listen. For the fifth time in the past four years, the National Institutes of Health is telling scientists conducting clinical research to include women in their study populations. This latest exhortation comes after Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and other members of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, following up on a recent General Accounting Office report that pointed out NIH's dismal performance to date in this area, blasted NIH

In an unprecedented deal, RiboGene Inc. is putting a Soviet team's advanced research into production with American money MENLO PARK, Calif.A year and a half ago, venture capitalist Petri Vainio was considering buying into a proposal from protein chemist and would-be entrepreneur Kin-Ping Wong. So Vainio began an investigation commonly performed by patent attorneys to see whether any other inventor, anywhere in the world, had come up with a similar idea. Vainio discovered that a group of Sovie

WASHINGTON When top federal jobs are handed out in Washington, few plums the most desirable and highest-profile positions go to women. And a new survey shows that they don't get the prunes the less visible but most demanding jobs either. And this goes for science jobs, as well as other kinds of jobs. Indeed, last year a private think-tank here, the Council for Excellence in Government, identified 100 prune jobs throughout the government. This year the council has narrowed its focus to select t

Iraqi invasion interrupts many international projects; Kuwaiti researchers fear warfare gas devasted their life's work As the world watches with alarm the unfolding crisis in the Middle East, the international science community is assessing losses resulting from the August 2 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The blow to Kuwaiti science is disastrous, and the damage of the attack extends beyond the borders of the small Persian Gulf country. Future international collaborations in the Middle East may be

Suppliers of laboratory chemicals and plastics are already beginning to feel the pinch from rising crude oil prices in the wake of the worldwide embargo of Iraqi oil. But it's not clear when-or if-scientists will have to pay more for those products. Officials at some companies, like J.T. Baker Chemical Inc. of Phillipsburg, N.J., one of the country's largest suppliers of laboratory solvents and other chemicals, say they plan to pass the cost increases onto their distributors, who could try to

Editors fear that a recent redefinition of `protected speech' could force them to stifle controversy in order to avoid lawsuits The freedom of scientists to candidly criticize their colleagues' theories in professional journals could be sharply curtailed by a Supreme Court ruling on libel handed down this past summer. Journal editors currently defending themselves in court against charges that their publications have been a party to a malicious attack fear that the high court decision could ha

Enzon Inc. gains ground in a growing industry with its innovative approach for enhancing the efficacy and durability of medicine Abraham Abuchowski was a Rutgers University biochemistry graduate student in the 1970s when his adviser set him to work on an inert polymer called polyethylene glycol (PEG). Abe Abuchowski, 42, runs his company the way he teaches karate classes. The cofounder and CEO of Enzon Inc. in South Plainfield, N.J., Abuchowski got hooked on the martial art while an undergra

Florida State's victory over MIT in gaining a new lab makes it clear that NSF is inclined to reward fresh vision and determination The National Science Foundation wants universities to know that it takes more than technical excellence and a good reputation to win a large grant. What's required are hard work, a long-range vision, a commitment to training the next generation of scientists, and a knack for obtaining outside funding to augment whatever the federal government can provide. What NSF

Contents Get Along, Li'l Duckies An Illustrious Collection Of Old Boys IIASA Takes First Steps Beyond Détente Report Chides NASA's New Safety System The idea was to enhance the environment. But when Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab employees decided to create plush surroundings for a breeding group of nonmigrating Maryland mallards, they didn't count on the problem of homeless ducks. Over the past few years seven domestic geese and six white ducks have been abandoned at the