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Light Source Fortunes Brighten After five years of rejection, Argonne National Lab has finally garnered congressional approval to begin construction of its $456 million Advanced Photon Source. Wasting not a moment, the lab broke ground just days after receiving $40 million for construction in the 1990 DOE budget, which took effect October 1. The APS, which will be the nation’s second-largest basic science project (after the Superconducting Supercollider) when it is completed in 1995, is

WASHINGTON—On the second Wednesday of each month, a dozen diplomatic science advisers gather behind closed doors at the French embassy here and talk about the future. The diplomats represent the 12 nations of the European Community (EC), and the focus of their discussion is 1992, the year targeted for the establishment of a unified European economy. Although the EC now controls only a small share of the funds that Europe spends on science, that share is expected to grow considerably in th

WASHINGTON—Members of Congress have rolled out the welcome mat for Allan Bromley the president’s new science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. But their enthusiastic greeting also has focused attention on the many difficult science-based problems facing the country. The issues aren’t new; among others, they include setting priorities for science, improving science education in elementary and secondary schools, replacing aging university equ

Forty-five years ago David Hubel thought he would become a physicist. That is, until he went to his first international scientific meeting. “I was scared off by the number of people,” recalls Hubel so he switched to a science still in its infancy and far more intimate—a science called neurophysiology, The move proved to be very useful for science—in 1981 Hubel received the Nobel Prize in medicine for his contributions to understanding the organization and functioning of

Neurologist Frank Wilson’s first foray into music came at the age of 12, when he struggled through six months of the universal childhood ritual known as piano lessons. It wasn’t until many years later, however, while listening to his daughter rehearse for a piano recital around the time of her own 12th birthday, that his interests in music and the medical sciences converged. As she played Chopin’s “Fantasy Impromptu,” Wilson found himself for the first time rea

Stockholders in Transgenic Sciences Inc. are hoping that scientists studying mice will view the firm’s first product as a boon. The Worcester, Mass., company says its offering, Cryozyte, will enable researchers to preserve mouse embryos on-site, thus eliminating the need for the bulky and expensive equipment traditionally used for cryopreservation. Before Cryozyte, says James Sherblom, chief executive officer of the two-year-old biotech firm, labs without the cryopreservation apparatus ha

When pathologists talk about a lack of bodies, they don’t always mean staff. They’re referring to, and lamenting, the declining autopsy rate. If you died in 1950—during the golden age of autopsy—the chances were 50-50 that your body would be opened to determine the cause of death. The rate dropped to 41% in 1964, 35% in 1972, and 22% in 1975. Today, it is closer toone in 10 and still falling. Researchers are now voicing alarm about the implications this decline poses for

Did Someone Say Profit? The debate over potential conflicts of interest in science may be a hot topic among life scientists (The Scientist, Oct. 16, 1989, page 1). But judging from the comments of two Washington policymakers, the debate hasn’t filtered down to all segments of the scientific community. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) recently gave a speech marking a new report from the National Academy of Sciences on opportunities in materials science that emphasizes how industry, academia, a

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—In 1969, the Union of Concerned Scientists was formed to combat the perceived threat of the United States military’s spread onto campuses, throughout southeast Asia, and into space. Next week, the organization will again rally faculty and students against a potential threat to their well-being. But this time the danger—the possibility of global warming and its impact on the environment—affects the entire planet. Officials of the Cambridge, Mass.-based

NIH has calculated award rates for its individual research (ROl), career development (RCDA), academic research enhancement (AREA), and Small Business Innovation Research Phase 1 and 2 awards for fiscal year 1988. For the ROl program, the typical grant to an individual investigator, the National Eye Institute had the highest award rate among the 13 institutes, at 46%. The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases had the lowest award rate, at 27%. The overall NIH rate

John J. Hopfield—neuroscientist, chemist, physicist, and computer scientist—has been selected as the winner of the 1989 Wright Prize for interdisciplinary study in science and engineering from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. Hopfield, 56, known for his research on neural networks, received $20,000 and a bronze sculpture from the college on October 12. Hopfield currently holds a joint appointment in the departments of chemistry and biology at the California Institute of Te

For researchers in such fast-growing fields as gene sequencing and crystallography, the end of traditional scientific publications may be in sight. Quietly, over the last year, a trial program in the electronic submission of data has laid the foundations for a revolution that may someday replace the research journal as the vehicle for scientific communication. In an agreement With GenBank, the main U.S. gene sequence database, nearly a dozen journals are refusing to accept papers with sequ